Digital twin and the asset administration shell

Engineering digital twins is a software and systems engineering challenge for which no systematic approach exists. The Asset Administration Shell is becoming a popular foundation for digital twins in Industry 4.0 and it comes in different types that support the engineering of different kinds and parts of digital twins. We investigate how it supports realizing common requirements for digital twins. To this end, we investigate how each of the three Asset Administration Shell types can contribute to the systematic engineering of specific components of digital twins. Therefore, we analyzed popular definitions and conceptual models of digital twins and extracted requirements that at least two of them share. We compare the resulting requirements with Asset Administration Shells of different types and conclude with open challenges in the implementation of digital twins with this technology. This supports practitioners and researchers in identifying the most suitable type of Asset Administration Shell for their specific digital twin engineering needs and identifies gaps worthy of future research toward a systematic engineering of digital twins.