ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the role and uses of digital models in industrial automation applications of the Industry 4.0 era. It introduces the digital models specified and used in the scope of the FAR-EDGE automation platform, towards supporting digital twins and system configuration use cases. The concept of simulating and experimenting with automation operations in the realm of digital models of the plant is conveniently called “digital twin” and is a key enabler of the digitization of industrial processes. Industry 4.0 applications are based on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Beyond a static representation of the structure of a factory and a plant, digital models should be able to represent the more dynamic automation and analytics processes, which form part of the plant’s dynamic behaviour. The synchronization between the physical and digital worlds can be also used to improve the results of digital simulations based on the so-called digital twins.
