From Simulation to Digital Twins, the Case of Internet of Things Research and Tools

The digitalisation of the environment surrounding human beings in their daily life is a major challenge facing today’s technological progress. Building digital replicas of humans and systems help us to understand our environment, to anticipate its variations and to better explain its behaviour. Research in digital twins is continuously developing due to the various benefits it offers. This paper describes how the simulation and modelling community is switching towards digital twins using smart cities as a use case scenario. It also reviews the common digital twin-enabling tools used in today’s research. Finally, the key research trends, challenges and future directions are given.