Integrating Heterogeneous Digital Twins in Federated Ecosystems

2026-06-21

AI Summary

This work addresses the interoperability and runtime coordination challenges among heterogeneous digital twins in federated ecosystems, which arise from divergent modeling approaches and technology stacks. To overcome these issues, the paper proposes a federated node manager architecture that enables modular and deployable integration of digital twins through capability-controlled exposure, protocol and data schema adaptation, and real-time exchange of states and events. Built upon service-oriented and event-driven design principles, the proposed system demonstrates the feasibility of efficient collaboration among diverse digital twins in an intelligent transportation emergency response scenario. This implementation successfully translates conceptual federated architectures into a practical, operational technical pathway, marking the first realization of such an integrated solution in real-world settings.

Abstract

Digital Twins (DTs) are increasingly used to virtualise physical systems at different scales, enabling monitoring, simulation, and predictions to support decision-making. However, while individual DTs are effective in stand-alone settings, ecosystem-scale deployments require multiple autonomous and distributed DTs to cooperate across system boundaries despite differences in modelling approaches or software technologies, making interoperability and runtime coordination critical challenges. Although \textit{Federated Digital Twin Ecosystems} have emerged as a promising direction, existing research remains at the conceptual stage, offering high-level architectures while leaving the practical integration of heterogeneous DTs underexplored. This paper proposes the \textit{Federation Node Manager}, a modular integration mechanism that connects local DTs to a federated environment through controlled capability exposure, protocol and schema adaptation, and timely state and event exchange for coordinated operations. We present a conceptual design and a prototype implementation, and demonstrate their feasibility in the smart mobility domain for emergency response scenarios. The proposed mechanism serves as an enabling component within a broader service-oriented federated DT ecosystem.

Problem

• Digital Twins
• Federated Ecosystems
• Interoperability
• Heterogeneous Systems
• Runtime Coordination

Innovation

• Federated Digital Twin
• Heterogeneous Integration
• Interoperability
• Protocol Adaptation
• State Synchronization