Verification and validation of digital twins and virtual testbeds

Abstract

Our society is surrounded by technical systems that increasingly influence and
take over aspects of everyone’s everyday life. As we build on the correct functioning, the need for appropriate methodologies that support the development of reliable products persists. However, the development and in particular the qualification become challenging due to their increasing inherent complexity. Virtual testbeds and digital twins are modern key concepts in this context and offer a wide range of opportunities for simulation-based verification and validation processes with virtual prototypes, especially in cases where real tests are hard to perform. However, the validity of test results derived from virtual experiments depends on the quality of the underlying simulation models.
Of course, the models themselves must be verified before. But in the context
of virtual testbeds and digital twins this becomes challenging since the corresponding models are usually complex themselves. Therefore, we presented an approach to establish structured verification and validation activities for digital twins and virtual testbeds, based on a modular configuration framework that supports the development of complex simulation models.