ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to investigate the body of literature on digital twins, exploring, in particular, their role in enabling smart industrial systems. This review adopts a dynamic and quantitative bibliometric method including works citations, keywords co-occurrence networks, and keywords burst detection with the aim of clarifying the main contributions to this research area and highlighting prevalent topics and trends over time. The analysis performed on citations traces the backbone of contributions to the topic, visible within the main path. Keywords co-occurrence networks depict the prevalent issues addressed, tools implemented, and application areas. The burst detection completes the analysis identifying the trends and most recent research areas characterizing research on the digital twin topic.

Decision-making, process design, and life cycle as well as the enabling role in the adoption of the latest industrial paradigms emerge as the prevalent issues addressed by the body of literature on digital twins. In particular, the up-to-date issues of real-time systems and industry 4.0 technologies, closely related to the concept of smart industrial systems, characterize the latest research trajectories identified in the literature on digital twins. In this context, the digital twin can find new opportunities for application in manufacturing, control, and services.

摘要

本研究的目的是调查有关数字孪生的文献，特别是探索它们在实现智能工业系统方面的作用。本综述采用动态和定量的文献计量方法，包括作品引用、关键词共现网络和关键词爆发检测，旨在阐明对该研究领域的主要贡献，并突出流行的主题和趋势。对引文进行的分析追溯了对该主题的贡献的主干，在主要路径中可见。关键词共现网络描述了解决的普遍问题、实现的工具和应用领域。突发检测完成了分析，确定了数字孪生主题研究的趋势和最新研究领域。

决策、流程设计和生命周期以及在采用最新工业范式中的促成作用成为数字孪生文献中解决的普遍问题。特别是实时系统和工业 4.0 技术的最新问题，与智能工业系统的概念密切相关，是数字孪生文献中确定的最新研究轨迹的特征。在此背景下，数字孪生可以在制造、控制和服务领域找到新的应用机会。