Digital Twins: Features, Models, And Services

This work provides an overview of digital twins, digital replicas of real entities conceived to support analysis, improvements, and optimal decisions. Specifically, it aims to better clarify what digital twins are by pointing out their main features, what they can do to support their related physical twins, and which models they use. An illustrative case together with a few selected application examples is used to better describe digital twins. A discussion on the actual challenges and research opportunities is also reported.