Digital twin (DT) technology has been a topic with academic and industrial coverage in recent years. DTs are intended to be a virtual high‐fidelity representation of a physical counterpart. Its complex nature requires several components to create and run a DT, and that is why many DT frameworks have been proposed in the literature. There are also many surveys of DTs, but none that is bottom‐up with concrete examples and focused on open‐source software. This survey analyzes 14 open‐source DT frameworks in 10 different dimensions, which are then categorized in six different groups according to their modeling and technological domain, to present the reader different options for creating and managing DT applications, and to understand potential combinations, uses, and limitations of the tools. It also presents a case study with five of the explored DT frameworks, describing the process on how the DT is set up and comparing their capabilities based on the services to be provided by the DT. Finally, it discusses advantages and limitations of the tools according to domain, requirements, and scope, relevant aspects regarding built‐in simulations and data analytics, theory‐to‐practice transition, and advantages/disadvantages of using open‐source software instead of commercial. Main limitations of the study due to its narrow niche, conclusions, and opportunities for future research regarding the potential room for improvement in terms of out‐of‐the‐box features and services for DTs, are also shown.

The Internet of Things (IoT) plays an important role in the development of applications for the Electrical Industry. The data has become essential for the technological advances in this industry, changing abruptly due to the distributed energy resources and the smart grid concept. The data integration also represents a relevant matter to address when performing IoT projects for electrical industry applications. The electrical industry requires incorporating different IoT protocols to comply with the distinct scenarios and the interoperability. This work proposes integrating the HTTP REST, MQTT, LoRaWAN, and OPC UA open communications protocols into an IoT platform and interoperable architecture for smart grid applications. This approach intends to contribute to smart grid solutions and automation systems in the electrical industry, promotes further integration of communication protocols for this field, and enables additional data-based applications for their automation systems. A Multi-Agent System architecture based on the IoT integration is proposed as an application to show how implementable is this approach in current and technological electrical systems.

In recent years the concept of Digital Twins (DTs) has gained significant attention, in particular in the manufacturing industry. In proper DTs there is a bidirectional connection to/from their Physical Twins such that it is possible to leave humans out of the loop. However, the underlying ideas of DTs have been inspired from a number of different scientific communities, in particular in relation to autonomy including the “Monitor-Analyze-Plan-Execute over a shared Knowledge” (MAPE-K). In this paper, we bridge the two concepts by demonstrating an implementation of a MAPE-K loop for an incubator case study within the context of its DT. We also discuss some of the limitations of the MAPE-K concept when applied to Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS).

Establishing digital twins is a non-trivial endeavor especially when users face significant challenges in creating them from scratch. Ready availability of re-usable models, data, functions, and tool assets, can help with creation and use of digital twins. A number of frameworks/platforms exist to facilitate creation and use of digital twins. In this paper, we propose such a platform to manage digital twin assets, create composable digital twins from re-usable assets and make the digital twins available as a service to other users. The proposed platform supports the management of re-usable assets, storage, provision of compute infrastructure, communication, monitoring, and execution tasks. Two case studies are used to demonstrate the capabilities of this platform.

Digital Twins (DTs) can be constructed for many different applications, leading to substantial differences between different case studies. To be able to learn from the challenges and lessons learned by other DT practitioners, it is important that experience reports be consistent to facilitate comparisons. In this paper, we merge three reference description frameworks for DTs, one generated from a systematic mapping study, one generated from an analysis of experience reports, and one from a systematic literature review, to come up with a unified characterization of DT applications. This analysis has identified six non-overlapping and three cross-cutting characteristics in the reference frameworks. This paper showcases the unified characterization with 21 characteristics to report on a DT case study called the Flex-cell, a manufacturing cell with two robotic arms used for cooperative assembly. The generalizability of this unified characterization is validated using a multi-case approach with another case study in robotics and another in the food industry. We call on the DT community to integrate these systematic reporting principles in their future DT experience reports such that other practitioners can learn from each other more effectively.