Description
A Master of Science thesis in Computer Engineering by Eman Shaikh entitled, “Design and Analysis of Secure Digital Twin Architecture”, submitted in June 2022. Thesis advisor is Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Ali and thesis co-advisor is Dr. Nazeeruddin Mohammad. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Completion Certificate, Approval Signatures, and AUS Archives Consent Form).
Abstract
In recent years, Digital Twin has been gaining popularity in various smart city applications like smart manufacturing, smart energy, smart mobility, and smart healthcare. Digital Twin in simple term, can be described as a virtual replica of a given physical product, system, or process. It comprises of three major components: the object entity, data acquisition unit and the virtual counterpart. The virtual entity is a cloud-based layer that performs data analytic and visualization. The data analytic utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) algorithms that help in predictive maintenance, optimization, and improved productivity. While the collected data from the physical domain layer is transmitted, exchanged, and processed at the virtual domain and application layers, it will be exposed to several security attacks. Nevertheless, just like any emerging technology, several research studies have been conducted over the implementation of Digital Twin in many smart city applications without paying enough attention in developing a model that comprises of the security attacks, analysis, and remedies. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to propose a secure Digital Twin multi-layer architecture for the attacks that can occur in each layer. It also proposes and implements a Probabilistic Model Checking (PMC) based approach to assess the Digital Twin security. The proposed model will be used to analyse the probability of success, as well as the cost for a variety of potential attacks that can occur in the Digital Twin architecture. To assess the proposed solution, a case study on an application of Digital Twin in healthcare will be considered.