Mid Sweden University

Digital twins have become a large part of new cyber-physical systems as they allow for the simulation of a physical object in the digital world. In addition to the new approaches of digital twins, machines have become more intelligent, allowing them to produce more data than ever before. Within the area of digital twins, there is a need for a less complex approach than a fully optimised digital twin. This approach is more like a digital shadow of the physical object. Therefore, the focus of this thesis is to study machine states and statistical distributions for all sensors in a machine. Where as majority of studies in the literature focuses on generating data from a digital twin, this study focuses on what characteristics a digital twin have. The solution is by defining a term named digital machine template that contains the states and statistical properties of each sensor in a given machine. The primary approach is to create a proof of work application that uses traditional data mining technologies and clustering to analyze how many states there are in a machine and how the sensor data is structured. It all results in a digital machine template with all of the information mentioned above. The results contain all the states a machine might have and the possible statistical distributions of each senor in each state. The digital machine template opens the possibility of using it as a basis for creating a digital twins. It allows the time of development to be shorter than that of a regular digital twin. More research still needs to be done as the less complex approach may lead to missing information or information not being interpreted correctly. It still shows promises as a less complex way of looking at digital twins since it may become necessary due to digital twins becoming even more complex by the day.