A unified view of a human digital twin

Abstract

The term human digital twin has recently been applied in many domains, including medical and manufacturing. This term extends the digital twin concept, which has been illustrated to provide enhanced system performance as it combines system models and analyses with real-time measurements for an individual system to improve system maintenance. Human digital twins have the potential to change the practice of human system integration as these systems employ real-time sensing and feedback to tightly couple measurements of human performance, behavior, and environmental influences throughout a product’s life cycle to human models to improve system design and performance. However, as this concept is relatively new, the literature lacks inclusive and precise definitions of this concept. The current research reviews the literature on human digital twins to provide a generalized structure of these systems, provide definitions of a human digital twin and human digital twin system, and review the potential applications of these systems within product design, development, and sustainment. This review of the existing literature suggests that components of human models sufficient to provide robust human digital twins are likely to be derived across multiple fields of study. Thus, development of these systems would benefit an open multi-disciplinary research effort.

Human Digital Twin: A Survey

“…Finally, it provides feedback information (e.g., diagnoses, predictions, and other suggestions) to the human. Miller et al [23] further refined the definition of HDT. They pointed out that a human in the physical world may be an individual, who could be characterized as a model, or a group of humans with common attributes, which could be summarized into eight categories of human attributes, including physical, physiological, perceptual performance, cognitive performance, personality characteristics, emotional state, ethical stance, and behavior.…”

“…Firstly, Michael et al [23] presented the HDTS framework mainly through block definition diagrams. The first diagram showed the primary components of a DTS, dividing it from DT, real-world twin and interchange components.…”

“…(2) The authors of [23] organized a review of the literature and investigated the modeling structure and use cases. They then provided a structural definition of an HDT through a block definition diagram, defined HDT and HDTS, and discussed use cases for HDTS.…”

“…HDT is a branch of DT, and they are essential to building an entirely consistent digital model in the digital world for physical objects in the physical world. Therefore, we attempt to define the human digital twin system (HDTS) by extending a way proposed in literature [23].…”

“…Because in the prediction process, HDT models in the virtual world need to make predictions according to the physical-world human representation environment. This issue is less apparent in literature, because the concept of DT is applied to the controlled environment [23], and the HDTS does not necessarily need a broad environmental model. It only needs a model that reflects the information, energy and matter exchanged between human representation and the environment.…”