Iterative updating of digital twin for equipment: Progress, challenges, and trends

Digital twin (DT) technology enables the creation of DT that are synchronized with the state and behavior of physical entities. DT simulates physical entities, which can enable the evaluation, prediction, and optimal control of physical entities. During the operation and service of a physical equipment, its structure will change, and its performance will gradually decrease. The iterative update of the DT can maintain “virtual and real synchronization” with the physical equipment, meeting the accuracy requirements for twin applications. Therefore, updating the DT model of an equipment based on the actual status of the physical equipment is a key challenge for DT applications in equipment health management (PHM). Scholars have studied many methods for updating DT iteratively. However, there is currently no systematic review of iterative updates for equipment DT, especially those focusing on updates. Therefore, two questions are raised by this study: (1) What is the latest state of the art in this research field? (2) What are the future research directions? In light of these inquiries, related research on the iterative renewal of equipment DT is systematically reviewed by this paper and potential development trends are discussed. Firstly, the research status of the iterative update method of the equipment DT was reviewed and summarized. Then, the high-fidelity evaluation methods of DT iterative update are reviewed. Thirdly, the challenges of iterative updating of DT models are analyzed. Finally, the potential development trend of iterative updating of equipment DT models is discussed. This study aims to sort out the research status of iterative updates of equipment DT. The iterative update technology system of DT is constructed to pave the way for further research in this field.