Blockchain for Digital Twins: Recent Advances and Future Research Challenges

The advent of blockchain technology can refine the concept of DTs by ensuring transparency, decentralized data storage, data immutability, and peer-to-peer communication in industrial sectors. A DT is an integrated multiphysics, multiscale, and probabilistic simulation, representation, and mirroring of a real-world physical component. The DTs help to visualize designs in 3D, perform tests and simulations virtually prior to creation of any physical component, and consequently play a vital role in sustaining and maintaining Industry 4.0. It is anticipated that DTs will become prevalent in the foreseeable future because they can be used for configuration, monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics. This article envisages how blockchain can reshape and transform DTs to bring about secure manufacturing that guarantees traceability, compliance, authenticity, quality, and safety. We discuss several benefits of employing blockchain in DTs. We taxonomize the DTs literature based on key parameters (e.g., DTs levels, design phases, industrial use cases, key objectives, enabling technologies, and core applications). We provide insights into ongoing progress made towards DTs by presenting recent synergies and case studies. Finally, we discuss open challenges that serve as future research directions.

Introduction

The extraordinary adoption of cyber-physical systems and high-performance computing (HPC) technologies has enabled industries to affordably create digital replicas of products, processes, devices, and systems. These replicas are known as digital twins (DTs). More specifically, a DT is an integrated multiphysics, multiscale, and probabilistic simulation, representation, and mirroring of a real-world physical component [1]. DTs are envisioned to transform the way the Internet of things (IoT) products are designed, built, and operated across various industries in the future. They are bringing profound impacts in the manufacturing industries [2], [3]. On the other hand, the IoT paradigm is subsequently adding pervasiveness through the deployment of various devices and technologies like sensors, actuators, micro-controllers, and cloud-enabled services and analytics [4], [5]. It is anticipated that approximately 4.5 billion IoT networked devices will provide DTs with the data they need in Europe by 2020 (https://www.challenge.org/insights/block-chain-and-digital-twin/; accessed on: 12 Nov. 2019). According to Gartner's survey report (https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-02-20-gartner-survey-reveals-digital-twins-are-entering-mail; accessed on: 05 February 2020), 13 percent of enterprises who implemented IoT projects are already using DTs, whereas 62 percent are either in the process of employing DTs or planning to do so.