Smart Ecosystems and Digital Twins: an architectural perspective and a FIWARE-based solution

Smart ecosystems today span several sectors, including smart manufacturing, energy management, smart cities, smart healthcare, precision farming, and others. Digital Twins (DTs) are emerging as a powerful technology that can act as the digital backbone of a smart ecosystem, providing the data, insights, and control capabilities needed for real-time optimization and collaboration among involved entities. In this paper, we focus on the architectural integration of DTs within smart ecosystems, addressing interoperability challenges and aligning with identified DT requirements. We introduce DT-enabled Ecosystem (DTE) architecture structured in: i) Logical View, outlining key DTE entities and relations; ii) Technological View, mapping entities and requirements onto FIWARE components; iii) Development View, providing low-level description in a smart mobility case study. This multi-view approach facilitates the deployment and scalability of DTs in diverse smart ecosystem scenarios.