UniTwin: Pushing Universal Digital Twins Into the Clouds Through Reconfigurable Container Environments

The increasing intersection of physical and digital spaces through intelligent digital twins (DTs) is revolutionizing real-world facilities and processes. While DTs are mainly used in engineering and manufacturing, there is an urgent need to extend their theoretical and practical applications to different domains. This paper presents UniTwin, a comprehensive framework developed for the deployment and aggregation of cloud-native universal DTs in containerized environments. The UniTwin framework addresses key challenges such as modularity, domain independence, flexibility of implementation, and scalability. By using a composite design pattern, the framework ensures robust and scalable DT management and enables efficient operation and migration across different environments. In detail, the article contributes the design, implementation, and validation of the UniTwin framework and demonstrates its effectiveness and potential for future diversified applications.