A. Barriga, S. Klikovits, M. Wimmer, J.A Barriga, P.J. Clemente: Characterizing Federated Digital Twins through Heterogeneity, Autonomy, and Distribution: A Family of Exemplars, Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 29th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, MODELS 2026, Malaga, Spain, October 4-10, 2026, Doi: 10.1145/3837062.3839097
Federated Digital Twins (FDTs) have emerged as a promising paradigm for supporting decision-making in complex, interdependent systems. However, the literature remains highly fragmented, with terminologies, architectural styles, and integration mechanisms proposed without clear consensus or standardization. This fragmentation impedes systematic comparison across approaches and hinders the establishment of engineering guidelines. To address this gap, this work adapts the well-established multidatabase dimensions of heterogeneity, autonomy, and distribution as an analytical framework for FDT strategies. The framework provides a unified vocabulary for making diverse federation strategies explicit, comparable, and analyzable. To demonstrate its practical value, we implement three FDT exemplars, each representing a different federation strategy. These implementations are used to apply and assess the framework, illustrating how FDT solutions balance heterogeneity, autonomy, and distribution in practice. The proposed framework establishes a structured basis for characterizing FDT approaches and provides practitioners with explicit criteria that can inform the selection of federation strategies according to system constraints.