Digital twin (DT) technologies have been developing very quickly during the last ten years and this has resulted in some level of misinterpretation and misunderstanding regarding their architecture and appropriate implementation techniques with the usage of physics-based models. In order to clarify these issues, it is necessary to first understand that the digital twin technologies are closely related with concepts of Industry 4.0, IoT and Big Data, which have, over the last few decades, become progressively more closely related with engineering tasks such as the optimisation and improvement of design processes and predictive maintenance tasks. Considering that a DT is commonly defined as an accurate virtual duplicate (replica) of a real physical system and that its application requires a combination of modelling and data, it represents a significant development with regard to the understanding of the influence of vehicle system dynamics and models built on the principles of digital twin technologies and data-associated or data-based techniques. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the transition of virtual prototyping and real-time modelling techniques to the digital twin methodologies as well as the combination of vehicle dynamics modelling and data-based approaches and their assistance in vehicle engineering applications.
The aim of this special issue is to show the modern methods, methodologies and frameworks for the development of digital twins in the area of vehicle design for the engineering systems that are defined with time-dependant behaviour and are relevant to vehicle and transport engineering tasks.
It is necessary to emphasise that this special issue can only provide some limited directions to assemble the theory for the development of digital twin techniques and their application considering multidisciplinary approaches. More work should be performed in this direction because it is a new research area, and the system architecture and developmental framework definitely require more investigation and improvement. Therefore, the editors of this special issue invite researchers to continue progressing further novel innovations and to publish more interesting research papers related to digital twins in Vehicle System Dynamics.
1st September 2023