IoT Blockchains for Digital Twins

Abstract

Digital twins (DTs) have emerged as a critical concept in cyberspace infrastructure. DTs are virtual representations of physical things including model smart structures or environments, manufacturing processes, humans, and a variety of other things. The value provided by DTs relies on their fidelity in representation. Blockchains provide trust assurance mechanisms, particularly where multiple parties are involved. The expected life cycle operations of the IoT, blockchain, and DT need to be considered to develop economically useful blockchain digital twin (BDT) models. BDTs do not exist in isolation, but rather within a DT environment (DTE). A DTE may include multiple DTs of different objects to enable interactions between these objects to be evaluated in both virtual reality and mixed reality cases. To populate DTEs with multiple DTs requires industrialized tooling to support the rapid creation of DTs. The industrialization of DT creation requires frameworks, architectures, and standards to enable interoperability between DTs and DTEs.