Improving digital twin experience through big data, IoT and social analysis: An architecture and a case study

Heliyon. 2024 Jan 19;10(2):e24741. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e24741. eCollection 2024 Jan 30.

Abstract

Industries such as construction and business companies are becoming increasingly digitized. The amount of data to be monitored and processed has increased significantly since the advent of the Internet of Things and the massive use of sensors. In addition to the data from these sensors, large amounts of data that require specific handling and processing are received. Much of this data is eventually represented in digital twins as a monitoring or decision-support tool. In this paper, we present an architecture to improve digital twin-based experiences that need to represent information from multiple sources. This architecture is demonstrated using the specific use case of a digital twin for an office of an Italian company. The implementation leverages the Matterport 3D media platform and integrates different technologies and sensors. An evaluation of the solution has also been carried out. The results show high user acceptance and the opening of multiple possibilities to enrich the virtual model with further data from different sources.

Keywords: Big data; Digital twin; Internet of things; Social analysis.