We can divide Digital Twin Architecture or the Flow of Information of a digital twin into different layers. Broadly speaking, there are three layers:
- Physical Layer (sensors/edge)
- Middle Layer (cloud/ML)
- Frontend (visualization/control)
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Digital Twin Information Flow - Digital Twin Architecture |
- Machines
- Conveyor belts
- Robotic arms etc
- Embedded with Sensors (e.g., Temp, Speed, Weight, Vision Sensors)
2. Edge Layer (Optional but Recommended)
The data from sensors typically goes through an edge device or IoT gateway, which might preprocess the data, handle protocol conversion.
Edge Devices / Gateways:
- Example: Raspberry Pi, Siemens IoT2040, Azure IoT Edge
- Functions:
- Aggregate sensor data
- Filter or pre-process
- Secure and compress transmission
- Convert protocols (e.g., OPC-UA → MQTT)
Example: A temperature sensor on a packing robot sends readings every second to a Raspberry Pi (edge device) that relays it via MQTT to a central broker or backend.
3. Communication Protocols
- MQTT (lightweight IoT protocol)
- WebSockets (for real-time communication)
- REST APIs (for request-response)
- Kafka (for enterprise-scale pipelines and batch processing)
4. Backend / Cloud Server Layer
- AWS IoT, Azure Digital Twins, Custom Node.js/Python server
- Ingested via MQTT broker, Kafka topics, etc.
- Real-time analytics or ML
- Alert systems
5. Digital Twin Frontend (Unity or Web App)
- Built using Unity3D or Three.js, Unreal, etc.
- Pulls or receives data (REST API /WebSocket/MQTT/Kafka)
- Updates the 3D model or visualization in real-time
6. Digital Twin Output
- 3D visualization (robot arms moving)
- Dashboards (temperature chart, anomaly alerts)
- User Interactions (control interface, simulations)
🔁 Optional: Feedback/Control Loop
- From digital twin → server → device
- Example: Adjust machine speed based on analytics
✅ Example in Action:
A robotic packing arm has:
- A load sensor
- A vision camera
The load sensor sends data to a Raspberry Pi, which publishes to an MQTT broker.
A Unity3D app connects via WebSocket or subscribes to the MQTT topic.
The 3D model in Unity shows:
- The real-time weight of the product
- Animation of the arm movement
- If overloading is detected, an alert appears in the UI.
This interconnected flow empowers businesses to monitor, analyze, and optimize their operations with unprecedented precision.
#DigitalTwin #IoT #Industry40 #SmartManufacturing #FactoryAutomation
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