Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges

Judith Michael; Loek Cleophas; Steffen Zschaler; Tony Clark; Benoit Combemale; Thomas Godfrey; Djamel Eddine Khelladi; Vinay Kulkarni; Daniel Lehner; Bernhard Rumpe; Manuel Wimmer; Andreas Wortmann; Shaukat Ali; Balbir Barn; Ion Barosan; Nelly Bencomo; Francis Bordeleau; Georg Grossmann; Gabor Karsai; Oliver Kopp; Bernhard Mitschang; Paula Muñoz Ariza; Alfonso Pierantonio; Fiona A. C. Polack; Matthias Riebisch; Holger Schlingloff; Markus Stumptner; Antonio Vallecillo; Mark van den Brand; Hans Vangheluwe

doi:10.1002/sys.21815

Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges

Judith Michael^*
, Loek Cleophas
, Steffen Zschaler
, Tony Clark
, Benoit Combemale
, Thomas Godfrey
, Djamel Eddine Khelladi
, Vinay Kulkarni
, Daniel Lehner
, Bernhard Rumpe
, Manuel Wimmer
, Andreas Wortmann
, Shaukat Ali
, Balbir Barn
, Ion Barosan
, Nelly Bencomo
, Francis Bordeleau
, Georg Grossmann
, Gabor Karsai
, Oliver Kopp

Bernhard Mitschang, Paula Muñoz Ariza, Alfonso Pierantonio, Fiona A. C. Polack, Matthias Riebisch, Holger Schlingloff, Markus Stumptner, Antonio Vallecillo, Mark van den Brand, Hans Vangheluwe

^*Corresponding author for this work

Institute of Highway Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa; Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Wallenberg Research Centre at Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa
King's Business School, King's College London London UK
Cardiologie – CHU Rennes – LTSI Inserm UMR 1099 ‐ Université Rennes‐1 Rennes France
CNRS, Université de Rennes, Rennes, France
TATA Consulting, Pune, India
JKU Linz, Linz, Austria
Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Biomedical & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, United Kingdom; Department of Computational Physiology, Simula Research Laboratory, Oslo, Norway.
North Middlesex University Hospital; London UK
TU Eindhoven, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
ETS, Montréal, Canada
University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Vanderbilt University Nashville Tennessee USA
Departamento de Tecnología Electrónica, University of Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain
University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy
University of Hull
Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences Universität Hamburg Hamburg Germany
HU Berlin Fraunhofer FOKUS Berlin Germany
Flanders Make, Lommel/Leuven/Kortrijk, Belgium

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

4 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Digital twins are increasingly used across a wide range of industries. Modeling is a key to digital twin development—both when considering the models which a digital twin maintains of its real‐world complement (“models in digital twin”) and when considering models of the digital twin as a complex (software) system itself. Thus, systematic development and maintenance of these models is a key factor in effective and efficient digital twin development, maintenance, and use. We argue that model‐driven engineering (MDE), a field with almost three decades of research, will be essential for improving the efficiency and reliability of future digital twin development. To do so, we present an overview of the digital twin life cycle, identifying the different types of models that should be used and re‐used at different life cycle stages (including systems engineering models of the actual system, domain‐specific simulation models, models of data processing pipelines, etc.). We highlight some approaches in MDE that can help create and manage these models and present a roadmap for research towards MDE of digital twins.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	659-670
Number of pages	12
Journal	Systems Engineering
Volume	28
Issue number	5
Early online date	2 Apr 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.21815
Publication status	Published - Sept 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Systems Engineering published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Funding

This study is partially funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Agence Nationale De La Recherche (ANR)—France—Model-Based DevOps—505496753 and ANR-22-CE92-0068. Website: https://mbdo.github.io and partially funded by the Key Digital Technologies (KDT) Joint Undertaking through the European Union’s Horizon Europe project MATISSE, grant agreement No. 101140216. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Keywords

model‐driven engineering
digital twin
systems engineering
cyber‐physical systems

Access to Document

10.1002/sys.21815Licence: CC BY 4.0

Systems Engineering - 2025 - Michael - Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins Opportunities and Challenges
Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Systems Engineering published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 2.13 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

Michael, J., Cleophas, L., Zschaler, S., Clark, T., Combemale, B., Godfrey, T., Khelladi, D. E., Kulkarni, V., Lehner, D., Rumpe, B., Wimmer, M., Wortmann, A., Ali, S., Barn, B., Barosan, I., Bencomo, N., Bordeleau, F., Grossmann, G., Karsai, G., ... Vangheluwe, H. (2025). Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges. Systems Engineering, 28(5), 659-670. https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.21815

@article{182eba84e0c1425db540c12a94129f99,

title = "Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges",

abstract = "Digital twins are increasingly used across a wide range of industries. Modeling is a key to digital twin development—both when considering the models which a digital twin maintains of its real‐world complement (“models in digital twin”) and when considering models of the digital twin as a complex (software) system itself. Thus, systematic development and maintenance of these models is a key factor in effective and efficient digital twin development, maintenance, and use. We argue that model‐driven engineering (MDE), a field with almost three decades of research, will be essential for improving the efficiency and reliability of future digital twin development. To do so, we present an overview of the digital twin life cycle, identifying the different types of models that should be used and re‐used at different life cycle stages (including systems engineering models of the actual system, domain‐specific simulation models, models of data processing pipelines, etc.). We highlight some approaches in MDE that can help create and manage these models and present a roadmap for research towards MDE of digital twins.",

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Michael, J, Cleophas, L, Zschaler, S, Clark, T, Combemale, B, Godfrey, T, Khelladi, DE, Kulkarni, V, Lehner, D, Rumpe, B, Wimmer, M, Wortmann, A, Ali, S, Barn, B, Barosan, I, Bencomo, N, Bordeleau, F, Grossmann, G, Karsai, G, Kopp, O, Mitschang, B, Muñoz Ariza, P, Pierantonio, A, Polack, FAC, Riebisch, M, Schlingloff, H, Stumptner, M, Vallecillo, A, van den Brand, M & Vangheluwe, H 2025, 'Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges', Systems Engineering, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 659-670. https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.21815

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AU - Cleophas, Loek

AU - Zschaler, Steffen

AU - Clark, Tony

AU - Combemale, Benoit

AU - Godfrey, Thomas

AU - Khelladi, Djamel Eddine

AU - Kulkarni, Vinay

AU - Lehner, Daniel

AU - Rumpe, Bernhard

AU - Wimmer, Manuel

AU - Wortmann, Andreas

AU - Ali, Shaukat

AU - Barn, Balbir

AU - Barosan, Ion

AU - Bencomo, Nelly

AU - Bordeleau, Francis

AU - Grossmann, Georg

AU - Karsai, Gabor

AU - Kopp, Oliver

AU - Mitschang, Bernhard

AU - Muñoz Ariza, Paula

AU - Pierantonio, Alfonso

AU - Polack, Fiona A. C.

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AU - Stumptner, Markus

AU - Vallecillo, Antonio

AU - van den Brand, Mark

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Model‐Driven Engineering for Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

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