Digital twins are much more than just 3D models. They are digital images of real physical objects with all kinds of information about the components and system connections. This includes the unique description of their capabilities, their role within the machine, their behaviour, the simulation of their kinematics and kinetics, and their communication. By designing the Asset Administration Shell and and co-founding the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) in 2020, Festo fostered an important development. This creates a digital infrastructure that forms a standardised basis for all market participants (users, tool manufacturers, component manufacturers).
The Asset Administration Shell is a concept that applies a practical approach to digital twins and establishes interoperability between concepts from different providers. It enables the use of different communication channels and applications and serves as a link between objects of the Internet of Things and the networked, digital and distributed world.
The Asset Administration Shell consists of a series of submodels in which all the information and functionalities of a particular asset are described. These submodels can contain features, characteristics, properties, status, parameters, measurement data and capabilities and provide standardised access, regardless of the manufacturer, across all lifecycle phases.