Real-Time Digital Twin

In the ICNAP study "Real-time Digital Twin" the goal is to explore the topic of Digital Twins in a real-time context and get answers to the previously asked questions. Starting with the state of the art of Digital Twins, the current understanding and use is described in the following report. The concept of real-time computation and communication is introduced to distinguish hard and soft real-time from information generated at runtime. Then, the term Real-time Digital Twin is defined. Further, the analysis of use cases, which have been identified in the literature as well as in the ICNAP community, show the potential of using Digital Twins in a real-time context. To provide a direct entry point into the use of the Real-Time Digital Twin with this study, various hard and software tools for realizing Digital Twins are covered, and the software frameworks for Digital Twins are evaluated. Finally, this report then touches on open research topics.