Asset Information Model to support the adoption of a Digital Twin: West Cambridge case study

Digital Twins are an emerging topic in the context of the Built Environment. In addition to being a digital representation of a physical asset, system or process, a digital twin should represent the nuances such as the hierarchy nature of physical assets, relationships between different systems and the workflow of different processes. Furthermore, a digital twin should be agnostic to specific technology solutions and aim to have the ability to support data analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data standardisation, integration and exchange. This paper presents a BIM-based approach for the design and development of a digital twin. This approach utilises the object-orientated aspect of a BIM model for the creation of an Asset Information Model (AIM), which supports the creation of a DT. Based on a case study of the West Cambridge campus, this paper illustrates the development of a single 3D model for the integration of multiple BIM models with rich metadata attached based on an asset classification schema.