Digital Twins are very promising to bring smart farming to new levels of farming productivity and sustainability. A Digital Twin is a digital equivalent of a real-life object of which it mirrors its behaviour and states over its lifetime in a virtual space. Using Digital Twins as a central means for farm management enables the decoupling of physical flows from its planning and control. As a consequence, farmers can manage operations remotely based on (near) real-time digital information instead of having to rely on direct observation and manual tasks on-site. This allows them to act immediately in case of (expected) deviations and to simulate effects of interventions based on real-life data. This paper analyses how Digital Twins can advance smart farming. It defines the concept, develops a typology of different types of Digital Twins, and proposes a conceptual framework for designing and implementing Digital Twins. The framework comprises a control model based on a general systems approach and an implementation model for Digital Twin systems based on the Internet of Things—Architecture (IoT-A), a reference architecture for IoT systems. The framework is applied to and validated in five smart farming use cases of the European IoF2020 project, focussing on arable farming, dairy farming, greenhouse horticulture, organic vegetable farming and livestock farming.

数字孪生非常有希望将智能农业带入新的农业生产力和可持续性水平。数字孪生是现实生活对象的数字等效物，它会在虚拟空间中反映其行为和生命周期中的状态。使用Digital Twins作为场管理的中心手段，可以将物理流量与其计划和控制分离。因此，农民可以基于（近）实时数字信息远程管理操作，而不必依靠现场直接观察和手动任务。这使他们可以在（预期）偏差的情况下立即采取行动，并根据实际数据模拟干预措施的效果。本文分析了Digital Twins如何推动智能农业。它定义了概念，发展了不同类型的Digital Twins的类型，并提出了用于设计和实施“数字孪生”的概念框架。该框架包括一个基于通用系统方法的控制模型和一个基于物联网架构（IoT-A）的数字孪生系统的实现模型，IoT-A是物联网系统的参考架构。该框架已在欧洲IoF2020项目的五个智能农业用例中得到了应用和验证，该案例侧重于可耕种农业，奶业，温室园艺，有机蔬菜农业和畜牧业。