A Simulator Coupling Architecture for the Creation of Digital Twins

Digital Twins are digital representations of real-world entities. Their behavior resembles the behavior of the real entity at all times. They are candidates for the evaluation of complex adaptive embedded systems, for example in the domains of autonomous driving, or industry 4.0 production systems. However, as most simulators are specialized and only simulate selected aspects of a system with highest accuracy, the creation of a Digital Twin requires the coupling of simulators and their simulation models. Related work indicates that this is still a labor-intensive and manual task. In this paper, we present an architecture framework that transfers approaches from Component-Based Software Engineering to simulator coupling. Simulators are encapsulated as simulation components with defined interfaces. The creation of a Digital Twin is supported by orchestrating simulation components. We present the formal definition of simulation components and our simulation framework, as well as the rules for coupling simulation components into Digital Twins.