Conventional conceptions of digital twins include an implicit assumption of a single entity or organisation responsible for --- and interested in --- both the physical and digital twin. In many areas where digital twins can provide value, especially those relating to policy and public services, this cannot be assumed. Digital twins have been proposed and used for transport and traffic, policy, crises response, smart cities, health care, and logistics – all areas in which multiple systems interact, and responsibility is split between many stakeholders. Co-operation and collaboration between these stakeholders is essential for the successful design and implementation of digital twins in such areas. However, this is hampered by a lack of shared vision and understanding, especially in the early phases of a project.
In this paper we propose the domain relationship diagram (DRD) as a framework for exploring the beliefs and assumptions that stakeholders bring to projects involving interconnection of digital twins. We demonstrate how the DRD can be used as a collaborative tool for exploring the relationships different stakeholders have to one another, their interest and responsibilities for the physical and virtual domains within a cyber-physical ecosystem, and the data handling and sharing requirements of all involved.
While the DRD is applicable to any multi-stakeholder digital twin project, in this paper we present it in the context of two different use cases relating to public policy. The first use case is that of a transport crisis response digital twin, based on work sponsored by the Department for Transport in the UK. The second use case relates to a climate and energy policy digital twin, linking to the European Space Agency’s DestinE digital twin. In both examples, we demonstrate how the use of the DRD brings clarity to a project and can be used as a basis to define specifications for the digital twin components.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)