A consistency management framework for digital twin models

Digital twins (DTs) encapsulate the concept of a real-world entity (RE) and corresponding bidirectionally connected virtual one (VE) mimicking certain aspects of the former in order to facilitate various use-cases such as predictive maintenance. DTs typically encompass various models that are often developed by experts from different domains using diverse tools. To maintain consistency among these models and ensure the continued functioning of the system, effective identification of any consistency issues and addressing them whenever necessary is imperative. In this paper, we investigate the concept of consistency management and propose a consistency management framework that addresses various characteristics of DT models. Subsequently, we present three working examples that implement the proposed framework with graph-based techniques. Taking the working examples into account, we demonstrate and argue that our consistency management framework can provide crucial assistance in the consistency management of DT models.