Demystifying the Definition of Digital Twin for Built Environment

The concept of Digital Twin (DT) has been receiving an increasing amount of attention in the construction management and building engineering research domains. Although the benefits of DT are evident, confusion with regards to the concept of DTs and its relationship with others such as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Internet of Things (IoT) remains. This paper aims to help allay this confusion through an in-depth analysis of the definition of DT and its unique characteristics. As such, a review of the past and current definitions of DT and CPS in various domains is performed. An analysis is then conducted to identify the overlaps between the definition of DT with CPS, as well as with BIM and IoT. Finally, given the relatively closer resemblances between DT and CPS, a set of four distinct dimensions enabling their comparative analysis and highlighting their shared and unique characteristics is discussed. This paper contributes to the existing literature by exploring the definition of DT and presenting two original conceptualizations that help further refine the concept of DT in the construction and management and building engineering domain.