Papers › A Probabilistic Graphical Model Foundation for Enabling Predictive Digital Twins at Scale
A Probabilistic Graphical Model Foundation for Enabling Predictive Digital Twins at Scale
Michael G. Kapteyn, Jacob V. R. Pretorius, Karen E. Willcox
A unifying mathematical formulation is needed to move from one-off digital twins built through custom implementations to robust digital twin implementations at scale. This work proposes a probabilistic graphical model as a formal mathematical representation of a digital twin and its associated physical asset. We create an abstraction of the asset-twin system as a set of coupled dynamical systems, evolving over time through their respective state-spaces and interacting via observed data and control inputs. The formal definition of this coupled system as a probabilistic graphical model enables us to draw upon well-established theory and methods from Bayesian statistics, dynamical systems, and control theory. The declarative and general nature of the proposed digital twin model make it rigorous yet flexible, enabling its application at scale in a diverse range of application areas. We demonstrate how the model is instantiated to enable a structural digital twin of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The digital twin is calibrated using experimental data from a physical UAV asset. Its use in dynamic decision making is then illustrated in a synthetic example where the UAV undergoes an in-flight damage event and the digital twin is dynamically updated using sensor data. The graphical model foundation ensures that the digital twin calibration and updating process is principled, unified, and able to scale to an entire fleet of digital twins.
Code
Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.
Code Syntology ran Syntology
Not run by Syntology. Nothing on this page verifies that the listed code works.
Tasks
Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28
No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.
Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections