Digital twin

A digital twin is a digital representation of an intended or actual real-world physical product, system, or process (a physical twin) that serves as the effectively indistinguishable digital counterpart of it for practical purposes, such as simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance. The digital twin has been intended from its initial introduction to be the underlying premise for Product Lifecycle Management and exists throughout the entire lifecycle (create, build, operate/support, and dispose) of the physical entity it represents. Since information is granular, the digital twin representation is determined by the value-based use cases it is created to implement. The digital twin can and does often exist before there is a physical entity. The use of a digital twin in the creation phase allows the intended entity's entire lifecycle to be modeled and simulated. A digital twin of an existing entity may be used in real-time and regularly synchronized with the corresponding physical system. Though the concept originated earlier, the first practical definition of a digital twin originated from NASA in an attempt to improve the physical-model simulation of spacecraft in 2010. Digital twins are the result of continual improvement in the creation of product design and engineering activities. Product drawings and engineering specifications have progressed from handmade drafting to computer-aided drafting/computer-aided design to model-based systems engineering and strict link to signal from the physical counterpart. Digital twins were anticipated by David Gelernter's 1991 book Mirror Worlds. The concept and model of the digital twin was first publicly introduced in 2002 by Michael Grieves, at a Society of Manufacturing Engineers conference in Troy, Michigan. Grieves proposed the digital twin as the conceptual model underlying product lifecycle management (PLM). The digital twin concept, which has been known by different names (e.g., virtual twin), was subsequently called the "digital twin" by John Vickers of NASA in a 2010 Roadmap Report.