UniTwin

Framework for providing universal containerized Digital Twins with modular structure in Kubernetes.
This Fraemwork was published in the following Papers. If you find it useful for your research, please consider citing it.

DOI	Title	Stage	Cite
10.1109/ICECCME57830.2023.10253365	Conceptual Architecture for the Provision and Aggregation of Universal Digital Twins within Containerization Environments	Concept	Hae2023
10.1109/MIC.2024.3489876	UniTwin: Pushing Universal Digital Twins Into the Clouds Through Reconfigurable Container Environments	Implementation	Hae2025-1
10.3390/iot6040057	UniTwin: Enabling Multi-Digital Twin Coordination for Modeling Distributed and Complex Systems	Implementation	Hae2025-2
10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3619153	A Comparative Study of UniTwin and Established Digital Twin Frameworks for IoT Applications	Implementation	Hae2025-3

Citation

If you use UniTwin in your research, please consider citing the following publications:

@INPROCEEDINGS{Hae2023,
  title     = {Conceptual Architecture for the Provision and Aggregation of Universal Digital Twins within Containerization Environments},
  url       = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICECCME57830.2023.10253365},
  DOI       = {10.1109/iceccme57830.2023.10253365},
  booktitle = {2023 3rd International Conference on Electrical, Computer, Communications and Mechatronics Engineering (ICECCME)},
  publisher = {IEEE},
  author    = {Häußermann, Tim and Lehmann, Joel and Rache, Alessa and Reichwald, Julian},
  year      = {2023},
  month     = jul,
  pages     = {1--6}
}
}

@article{Hae2025-1,
  title     = {UniTwin: Pushing Universal Digital Twins Into the Clouds Through Reconfigurable Container Environments},
  volume    = {29},
  number    = {1},
  pages     = {8--15},
  ISSN      = {1941-0131},
  url       = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MIC.2024.3489876},
  DOI       = {10.1109/mic.2024.3489876},
  journal   = {IEEE Internet Computing},
  publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)},
  author    = {Häußermann, Tim M. and Lehmann, Joel and Rache, Alessa and Kolb, Florian and Wühler, Felix and Reichwald, Julian},
  year      = {2025},
  month     = jan
}

@article{Hae2025-2,
  title = {UniTwin: Enabling Multi-Digital Twin Coordination for Modeling Distributed and Complex Systems},
  volume = {6},
  ISSN = {2624-831X},
  url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/iot6040057},
  DOI = {10.3390/iot6040057},
  number = {4},
  journal = {IoT},
  publisher = {MDPI AG},
  author = {Häußermann,  Tim Markus and Lehmann,  Joel and Kolb,  Florian and Rache,  Alessa and Reichwald,  Julian},
  year = {2025},
  month = sep,
  pages = {57}
}

@article{Hae2025-3,
  title = {A Comparative Study of UniTwin and Established Digital Twin Frameworks for IoT Applications},
  volume = {13},
  ISSN = {2169-3536},
  url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3619153},
  DOI = {10.1109/access.2025.3619153},
  journal = {IEEE Access},
  publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)},
  author = {Häußermann,  Tim Markus and Lehmann,  Joel and Rache,  Alessa and Kolb,  Florian and Reichwald,  Julian},
  year = {2025},
  pages = {175225–175243}
}

Architecture

From: 10.1109/ICECCME57830.2023.10253365

Implementation

From: 10.1109/MIC.2024.3489876

From: 10.3390/iot6040057

Prequisits

1. Running Kubernetes-Cluster
2. Private Docker Registry in the cluster
3. Kubernetes Secret for Registry in namespace docker-registry
   
   If you need help setting up th Kubernetes-Custer and Registry have a look at:
   Kubernetes-Cluster-Setup

Installation

1. Build images: UniTwin and DTPS

• Modify buildUmages.py
• Change Private Docker Registry Endpoint, User and Password
• Set dtps, unitwin and chatmodelprovider to True
• Set pushonly to False
• Change Private Docker Registry Endpoint in class_kube_twin.py
• Run the script to Build the images and push them to your Private Docker Registry run buildUmages.py

python3 Scripts/buildImages.py

2. Deploy to your Kubernetes-Clusters

• Modify yaml files in Kubernetes: change Private Docker Registry Endpoint in 01-dtps-k8.yaml and 01-dtps-k8.yaml) run buildUmages.py

python3 Scripts/apply.py

Usage

1. Create the configuration for your required Digital Twin

• Use the JSON Builder for convenience. It is serverd under: http://0.0.0.0:32000/dtps/
• add and remove classes for needed functionalities in the class section
• customize class instances in the JSON Output section
• Publish Subscribe mechanism can be added to the classes.
  _subscribers: adds subscribers to class instance.
  Key = name of subscriber class instance, value = subscriber class instances subscription method
• _subscriptions: subscribes class instance to other class instance
  Key = name of publisher class instance, value = subscriber class instances subscription method

2. Deploy the Digital Twin to the Cluster
   a) Use DTPS Swagger UI under DTPS
   Use method createTwin
   b) curl -X 'POST'
   'http://0.0.0.0:32000/dtps/createTwin?conf={YourConfig}&version=1.0&assignNode=false'
   -H 'accept: application/json'
   -d ''
3. Interact with your Digital Twins API Endpoints under: http://0.0.0.0:32000/{DigitalTwinsUID}/docs#
4. Use the chat interface under http://0.0.0.0:32000/{DigitalTwinsUID}/ to get attributes and run commands

• examples: What is your uid? What are your children? Use child class_MQTT-I1 and run method publish with parameters Topic=Test, Payload=Test

Customization

1. Create your own class for your need and place it in DTPS/Modules

• Name of the file must match the classes name and contain the following imports and structure:

from .class_ComponentABC import Component
from .class_Event import Event

class class_MQTT(Component):

2. Define base configuration to use in JSON Builder

• Filename should be class_yourName.json

3. Rebuild and Redeploy DTPS