Guidance on the Verification and Validation of Digital Twins

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Digital twins are increasingly being used to address challenges and support decision-making in the offshore industry. Digital twins are defined here as a virtual representation of a physical asset, along with its environment and processes, comprised of integrated models that are updated through data exchange to provide decision-making support over its lifecycle. The developers and users of these digital twins, the decision makers using information obtained from the results of these digital twins, and the individuals affected by decisions based on such digital twins are focused on understanding if a digital twin and its results can be trusted. This concern can be mitigated through the appropriate application of verification and validation. Verification is typically defined as ensuring that the computerized model and its implementation are compliant with its requirements and specifications as detailed in its conceptual models, mathematical models, or other constructs (that is, “Did I build the thing right?”). Validation is defined as a process of determining the degree to which a digital twin is an accurate representation of the real world with respect to an intended use (“Did I build the right thing?”). This paper first establishes a modular and scalable ontology for digital twins that consolidates many existing definitions and descriptions into a format that is conducive to supporting verification and validation activities. Building on this ontology, two frameworks are presented: one framework for performing verification and validation on a developed digital twin and a separate framework for performing independent verification and validation on a third-party created digital twin. The goal of these frameworks is to define, determine, generate, and document the information needed to assess the digital twin’s credibility and justify using the digital twin for the specified use case or application. Additionally, considerations of related aspects, such as digital twin criticality, are also discussed.