ABSTRACT
Purpose: This chapter examines how blockchain can help abolish the current data fragmentation within the Internet of things (IoT) ecosystem to truly leverage the potential of digital twins. It is projected that soon by the turn of this decade the enormous number of interconnected devices across the globe shall support millions of “digital twins” with important data streams. A digital twin is the digital replica of a physical object (processes, assets, services or products). Digital twins prove to be beneficial as they allow testing or development in a safe and cost-effective manner. For example, it is better to test and crash a simulated engine than a real one.
Methodology: The study was undertaken in terms of case studies and literature review on IoT. Digital twins have aided the manufacturing industry by providing data management, data tracking and other benefits. In future digital twins shall constitute a fundamental pillar of the intelligent IoT ecosystem as well as Industry 4.0. However, the problem is that a digital twin is not a cheap digital copy. It is a complex data object that tracks a physical entity’s current configuration, state, location, operational characteristics and other attributes. Thus this twin is actually the foundation for training, monitoring, maintenance, troubleshooting, optimization and other tasks vital to keep the physical entity in a healthy working condition.
Findings: After detailed study, the findings suggest that it involves a lot of data whose movement consumes power and demands security. Effective data collection, storage, organization and transfer can be quite costly if not done properly. To overcome this grave issue of effectively handling data in the IoT ecosystem, blockchains have emerged as a key enabler for this networked digital twin environment. Blockchain is the process that transfers data as connected blocks through cryptology. Hence, each block is encrypted and attached to the block before and after it. Thus to hack a block one shall somehow have to change all the blocks as none of the blocks can be altered without appropriate authorization. Thus the blockchain technology optimizes storage and eliminates human error in a decentralized manner. Further through blockchains digital twins can be realized in a cheap manner for almost every industry. Blockchains have even extended the scope of digital twins from physical assets to the human healthcare industry.
Originality: This chapter aims to give the reader an insight into how the blockchains are helping realize cheap, optimized and secure twins to almost every industrial and human entity. It also highlights the current successful applications of blockchain-enabled digital twins while highlighting the potential research initiatives and challenges in the field.
