DIGITAL TWINS
have engines, wheels and
gearboxes. Gearboxes have
selectors and gears and
gears have bearings etc., etc.
The problem is not just about
nesting, it’s about data fl ow. If you
have an aggregate twin like the car does,
does the twin of the car present all the
data from the child twins, or does it point
to the children and allow you to get the
data from them?
Semantics as the place for
relationships
Given that the need to defi ne
relationships between twins exists, the
problem with a lot of solutions is where
does that linking data go and how is it
34 » JANUARY 2021 » WWW.MADEIN.IE
queried. At Iotics, we started from the
premise that all twins in our environment
would be defi ned by their metadata. The
metadata prescribing the API was one of
our guiding design principles from day
one and separation of the data and
metadata has always seemed natural to
us. Now, the infrastructure of the
operating environment to store these
links allows for the fl exibility of
relationships that are enabled by
the semantic web
technologies; and for
queries and inferences
to mine these
relationships to fi nd
related sources of
data.
From the early
days of the semantic
web, one of the key
uses for the technology
was in defi ning people
and their relationships. The
‘Friend Of A Friend’ (FOAF)
defi nitions, an ontology in the jargon,
were defi ned as early as 2000 to describe
these interactions. A quick Google for
language- and cultural- independent
family relationship ontologies will show
how complex these interlinkings can
become.
The relationships between twins in any
twin-enabled digital ecosystem can be
more complex than this, but the fl exibility
and extensibility of the semantic web
allows them to be modelled.
We believe that the relationships
between twins should be stored in the
semantics, away from the data and
controls. This allows proper separation of
concerns in the twins and the fl exibility
and extensibility given by the semantic
relationships. In eff ect, the twin is in
control of its own destiny.
Twins and semantic technology enable
us to deliver on the promise of digital
ecosystems, avoiding the limitations we
saw in hierarchical databases with their
focus on the logic of the databases
themselves; not the business logic which
drives value. Twins on their own provide
information, but not insight and without
accurate relationships, they restrict our
understanding of the real-world
complexity they purport to model. The
hierarchical challenge presented by nested
twins is only the beginning. We must be
able to facilitate the twin’s interactions
and relationships dynamically, in all their
highly variable, overlapping, messy,
multi-party nature.
Implementing the semantic web and
digital twin-enabled digital ecosystems is
not easy, but it is necessary to enable
real-time digital ecosystems that can
broker, secure and leverage the complex
interactions of digital twins across
corporate boundaries. This allows the
virtual twins to live and interact in the same
way as their physical counterparts, creating
the all-important mirror of life. MADE
Twins and
semantic technology
enable us to deliver on
the promise of digital
ecosystems, avoiding
the limitations we
saw in hierarchical
databases
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