COOCK project Smart Port 2025 D3.1: "To Twin Or Not To Twin"

TL;DR

The paper surveys the use of twinning in harbour ecosystems, tracing the Digital Twin concept from its origins to contemporary implementations and clarifying Definitions of Twin concepts and PoIs. It presents a structured categorization of twinning purposes (design, operational, visualization, maintenance) and a comprehensive set of non-functional requirements (ility suite) and usage contexts (sustainability, PLM stages, reuse). It then outlines architectural patterns, detailing Actual Object and Twin Object classifications, Experiment Manager roles, and service ecosystems, as well as product-type arrangements (single, heterogeneous groups, and hierarchical compositions). The work aims to guide engineers in selecting appropriate twinning architectures and validity frames to improve decision-making, efficiency, and sustainability in port operations and beyond.

Abstract

This document is a result of the COOCK project "Smart Port 2025: improving and accelerating the operational efficiency of a harbour eco-system through the application of intelligent technologies". It reports on the needs of companies for modelling and simulation and AI-based techniques, with twinning systems in particular. This document categorizes the purposes and Properties of Interest for the use of Digital Twins. It further illustrates some of the twinning usages, and touches on some of the potential architectural compositions for twins. This last topic will be further elaborated in a followup report.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: The "conceptual model for PLM", adapted from grieves2017digital.
• Figure 2: Digital Twin PLM stages
• Figure 3: Digital Twin subcategories according to kritzinger2018digital.
• Figure 4: 5D Architecture model for DT on the Shop-Floor, adapted from tao2017digital.