Summary
Digital Twins are very promising to bring smart farming to new levels of farming productivity and sustainability. A Digital Twin is a digital equivalent of a real-life object of which it mirrors its behaviour and states over its lifetime in a virtual space. Using Digital Twins as a central means for farm management enables the decoupling of physical flows from its planning and control. As a consequence, farmers can manage operations remotely based on (near) real-time digital information instead of having to rely on direct observation and manual tasks on-site. This allows them to act immediately in case of (expected) deviations and to simulate effects of interventions based on real-life data. This paper analyses how Digital Twins can advance smart farming. It defines the concept, develops a
Regional applicability
The study is European in scope and directly applicable to United Kingdom farming contexts. The framework encompasses arable, dairy, greenhouse, organic and livestock systems relevant to UK agriculture, though adoption will depend on digital infrastructure readiness and farmer familiarity with IoT systems.
Key measures
Digital twin typology classification, conceptual framework components (control model and implementation model based on IoT-A reference architecture), validation across five farming use cases
Outcomes reported
The study defines digital twin concepts, develops a typology of digital twin types, and proposes a conceptual framework for designing and implementing digital twins in farming. The framework was validated across five smart farming use cases including arable, dairy, greenhouse, organic vegetable and livestock farming systems.
Topic tags
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