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Data-Driven Digital Twin for Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Industrial Technologies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 July 2026 | Viewed by 1095

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Interests: maintenance, development and implementation of information systems and decision support
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Interests: Industry 5.0; human factors; ergonomics; production planning; logistics; sustainability; sustainable production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The convergence of industrial engineering, data science, and cyber–physical systems has enabled the rise of digital twins as transformative assets in Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0. This Special Issue focuses on the development and deployment of data-driven digital twins—dynamic, data-connected virtual counterparts of physical systems—designed to support decision-making, system optimization, and lifecycle management across industrial operations.

Digital twins offer tools for industrial engineers to enhance productivity, quality, and sustainability through real-time analytics, simulation, and control. Integration with data collected from Industrial IoT devices, edge computing platforms, and cloud infrastructures opens new horizons for process optimization, intelligent automation, and condition-based maintenance.

This Special Issue invites contributions that explore novel methods, architectures, and applications of digital twins, particularly emphasizing approaches based on data and their role in evolving manufacturing systems. Research involving predictive modeling, maintenance strategies, decision support tools, and AI-driven optimization is especially welcome.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Data architectures for digital twins in manufacturing;
  • Integration with Industrial IoT and edge/cloud systems;
  • Predictive analytics and health monitoring;
  • Applications in production logistics, asset management, and quality control.

Dr. Davor Kolar
Dr. Tihomir Opetuk
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • digital twin
  • smart manufacturing
  • Industry 4.0
  • industrial engineering
  • data-driven modelling
  • predictive maintenance
  • cyber–physical systems
  • industrial IoT
  • process optimization
  • condition monitoring

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 466 KB  
Article
A Composable Architectural Model for Digital Twin Computing Applications
by Saverio Ieva, Davide Loconte, Andrea Pazienza, Matteo Colombo, Federico Marzo, Giuseppe Loseto, Floriano Scioscia and Michele Ruta
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(9), 4541; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16094541 - 5 May 2026
Viewed by 333
Abstract
Digital Twins (DTs) are increasingly deployed in Industry 4.0 to enable real-time monitoring, analysis, and control, yet the transition from isolated DT instances to plant-wide ecosystems across cloud and edge infrastructures introduces fragmentation and coordination challenges among heterogeneous assets, data sources, and services. [...] Read more.
Digital Twins (DTs) are increasingly deployed in Industry 4.0 to enable real-time monitoring, analysis, and control, yet the transition from isolated DT instances to plant-wide ecosystems across cloud and edge infrastructures introduces fragmentation and coordination challenges among heterogeneous assets, data sources, and services. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a cloud-native Digital Twin Computing Layer (DTCL) that provides a unified control and orchestration plane for composing and operating DT applications in Smart Manufacturing. The DTCL is designed as a three-tier architecture comprising a developer-facing user interface, a Deploy Engine for automated deployment and lifecycle management, and a Service Catalog of reusable, independently deployable microservices. Standardized interaction is supported through semantic DT models and API- and message-based communication mechanisms. A governance workflow, based on service discovery and validation, is introduced to support non-redundant integration and controlled evolution of services. The approach is demonstrated through a Smart Manufacturing predictive maintenance case study and further extended with a Smart Mobility scenario for urban public transport planning, highlighting the flexibility of the DTCL across different application domains. Overall, the DTCL supports modular composition, interoperability, and lifecycle governance across heterogeneous Digital Twin applications, providing a scalable foundation for both industrial and urban data-driven scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Driven Digital Twin for Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0)
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22 pages, 5085 KB  
Article
Intelligent Lifting Systems Based on Digital Operators, Conductors and Supervisors
by Rui Zhou, Yuanrong Miao and Yufeng Chen
Appl. Sci. 2026, 16(9), 4270; https://doi.org/10.3390/app16094270 - 27 Apr 2026
Viewed by 192
Abstract
Traditional lifting operations rely heavily on manual experience, which often leads to high operational risks and limited efficiency. To address these issues, this paper proposes an intelligent lifting system with digital operators, conductors, and supervisors, to improve safety and efficiency through multi-agent collaboration. [...] Read more.
Traditional lifting operations rely heavily on manual experience, which often leads to high operational risks and limited efficiency. To address these issues, this paper proposes an intelligent lifting system with digital operators, conductors, and supervisors, to improve safety and efficiency through multi-agent collaboration. The system uses a BEVFusion-based perception module to support target detection and collision warning during lifting operations. To handle unforeseen situations, a dynamic local lifting path planning method is designed to ensure safe lifting operations. Rather than proposing a fundamentally new algorithm, this study focuses on integrating perception and planning within a unified intelligent lifting system. The experimental results show that the system can support safe lifting operations under the tested conditions and demonstrate its feasibility in practical scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Driven Digital Twin for Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0)
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