Defining Semantics for Digital Twins of Façade Component Testing Facilities

Auteurs

Boje C., Mack N., Kubicki S., Dugué A., Brassier P.

Référence

CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol. 3824, pp. 133-146, 2024

Description

There are numerous ontologies and data models to guide the development and instantiation of digital twins. The way these are defined depends greatly on the use case of the application. Within this article we explore a case study on the Open Source, Open Access, Open Data Building Envelope Testbench facilities, their context and application in industry and how a digital twin can be instantiated on specific semantic layers. The study shows an analysis of existing tools and the ontologies used, in this specific context. The semantic challenge comes in conceptualizing the digital twin for the testing facility itself (static in nature) and the temporary façade elements which are being tested (dynamic in nature), along with their respective sensing infrastructures. This challenge is explained and discussed through the prism of available ontologies, their mapping and interactions to facilitate several use cases. These use cases are intended to capture and delimitate the context of each individual façade element test, to help deliver transparency and more convenience when building client-side applications. Several examples on querying the proposed schema are shown using GraphQL, under the current architecture in place, which consists of a GraphDB backed with Apollo Federation and BEMServer as a data provider. This technical implementation is intended to facilitate modularity of testing, and API transparency to client-side applications, targeted at eventual users of the testing facility digital twin instance. The challenges and limitations of our approach are highlighted and discussed.