Deploying Digital Twins Over the Cloud-to-Thing Continuum

Abstract

Smart cities have deployed a myriad of devices to sense the status of the city and its citizens in order to reconfigure different elements to improve the quality of life. However, the analysis and reconfiguration of these elements on the fly can lead to unforeseen problems. The digital twin paradigm has risen as a promising technology to analyze and test these re-configurations before their execution. These digital twins are usually centralized in the cloud. However, the emulation of highly distributed systems can lead to scalability, response time, and security and privacy problems. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical and distributed architecture for digital twins, deployed over the Cloud-to-Thing Continuum. The proposal is illustrated by means of a case study about public transportation in smart cities.