Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges

ABSTRACT Digital twins are increasingly used across a wide range of industries. Modeling is a key to digital twin development—both when considering the models which a digital twin maintains of its real‐world complement (“models in digital twin”) and when considering models of the digital twin as a complex (software) system itself. Thus, systematic development and maintenance of these models is a key factor in effective and efficient digital twin development, maintenance, and use. We argue that model‐driven engineering (MDE), a field with almost three decades of research, will be essential for improving the efficiency and reliability of future digital twin development. To do so, we present an overview of the digital twin life cycle, identifying the different types of models that should be used and re‐used at different life cycle stages (including systems engineering models of the actual system, domain‐specific simulation models, models of data processing pipelines, etc.). We highlight some approaches in MDE that can help create and manage these models and present a roadmap for research towards MDE of digital twins.

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Publication Details

Journal
Systems Engineering
Published
2025-04-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.21815
Citations
11
Primary Topic
Digital Transformation in Industry
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
13.67

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Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges

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Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges

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article en
11 citations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Digital twins are increasingly used across a wide range of industries. Modeling is a key to digital twin development—both when considering the models which a digital twin maintains of its real‐world complement (“models in digital twin”) and when considering models of the digital twin as a complex (software) system itself. Thus, systematic development and maintenance of these models is a key factor in effective and efficient digital twin development, maintenance, and use. We argue that model‐driven engineering (MDE), a field with almost three decades of research, will be essential for improving the efficiency and reliability of future digital twin development. To do so, we present an overview of the digital twin life cycle, identifying the different types of models that should be used and re‐used at different life cycle stages (including systems engineering models of the actual system, domain‐specific simulation models, models of data processing pipelines, etc.). We highlight some approaches in MDE that can help create and manage these models and present a roadmap for research towards MDE of digital twins.

Systems EngineeringVol. 28(5)
University of Stuttgart (DE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), University of Antwerp (BE), Universität Hamburg (DE), Aston University (GB), University of South Australia (AU), King's College London (GB), Durham University (GB), University of Hull (GB), Vanderbilt University (US), Stellenbosch University (ZA), University of L'Aquila (IT), Simula Research Laboratory (NO), Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (DE), Flanders Make (Belgium) (BE), Université de Rennes (FR), Middlesex University London (GB), Universidad de Málaga (ES), Eindhoven University of Technology (NL), RWTH Aachen University (DE), École de Technologie Supérieure (CA)
European Commission, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme
Responsible consumption and production
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Digital Transformation in Industry
13.67
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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