Digital Twin – Modeling Interrelated Devices
of the type FunctionalGroupType are used to group the Parameters and Methods of the Device
into logical groups. The FunctionalGroupType and the grouping concept are defined in UA Part DI
but the groups are Device type specific, i.e., the groups’ ProcessData and Configuration are
defined by the TemperatureControllerType in this example.
Figure 8 OPC UA Device Example
OPC UA is a well-established standard in the industry with a large installed base. This presents an
opportunity to leverage the OPC UA Information Model to automatically generate the JSON
representation of the corresponding IoT digital twins, avoiding tedious work for large scale
systems.
Benefits include:
Better fidelity of digital twin as is automatically generated from an existing model
Lower level of effort; a translation tool will generate the cloud representation from the
OPC UA model
Faster implementation and time-to-operation, same as above
Agility, flexibility, and reusability
Scalability of model complexity, once supported by cloud IoT framework
Wider market acceptance (technical and commercial)
IIC Journal of Innovation
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