The use of open-source software is crucial for the digitalization of manufacturing, including the implementation of Digital Twins as envisioned in Industry 4.0. This research paper provides a comprehensive comparison of free and open-source implementations of the reactive Asset Administration Shell (AAS) for creating Digital Twins. A structured search on GitHub and Google Scholar was conducted, leading to the selection of four implementations for detailed analysis. Objective evaluation criteria were defined, and a testing framework was created to test support for the most common AAS model elements and API calls. The results show that all implementations support at least a minimal set of required features while none implement the specification in all details, which highlights the challenges of implementing the AAS specification and the incompatibility between different implementations. This paper is therefore the first attempt at a comprehensive comparison of AAS implementations and identifies potential areas for improvement in future implementations. It also provides valuable insights for software developers and researchers in the field of AAS-based Digital Twins.
Keywords: AAS; Industry 4.0; asset administration shell; digital twin; implementation; open source.