ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an introduction to digital twin with specific reference to Systems 4.0 in an environment of Industry 4.0. The recent advances in digital transformation are metamorphosing Industry 4.0 for effective decision-making. In many applications, field assets, machines, products, plants, and factories are increasingly being connected to the Internet. This allows for these systems to be located, communicated with, analyzed, and controlled via the network. Thus, these digital transformations are revolutionizing new types of services and business models. On the computational side, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) have been proposed as a key concept of Industry 4.0 architecture. A CPS is a set of physical devices, equipment, and system that interact with virtual cyberspace through a communication network. The cyber-model of such a physical system is called a digital twin (DT). Simply stated, a DT is a digital replica of a physical system (or asset or process) in the built or natural environment. For actionable applications, such a replica must be a realistic and dynamic representation of the physical system. The word “twin” in DT implies that the replica system would be linked to the physical system throughout its entire life cycle.
