The Digital Twin Handbook: Challenges, opportunities and future research directions

A digital twin (DT) is a digital representation of a real-world physical product, system, or process. It is indistinguishable from its physical counterpart and used for simulation, integration, testing, monitoring and maintenance, often in real-time and in synchronization with the physical system. Digital twins offer the ability to gain a deep insight into the operating principles of any services, the interactions between different parts of the services and the behavioural aspects in a way that can be interactive and actionable for users and decision-makers.