Blockchain Digital Twin Fingerprints for Configuration Integrity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial automation systems face challenges in accurately tracking and verifying changes to digital twins and configurations of industrial devices, leading to potential system failures and unauthorized modifications, especially with complex electronic devices.
Innovation Solution
Implementing blockchain-enabled digital twins and configuration fingerprints to store and compare digital twin and configuration fingerprints on an immutable ledger, ensuring equivalence and validity through consensus-based validation, and using artificial intelligence for change detection and authorized maintenance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If digital twins and configurations are stored in traditional centralized databases, then data access and modification are simple and fast, but the system is vulnerable to unauthorized modifications and data integrity cannot be guaranteed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces blockchain technology as an intermediary layer between the digital twin system and the database. The blockchain ledger stores cryptographic hashes of digital twin configurations, acting as a trusted mediator that verifies data integrity without requiring complex centralized authorization systems. This resolves the contradiction by providing reliability through the blockchain's immutable nature while keeping the overall system architecture relatively simple.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates cryptographic copies (hashes) of digital twin configurations and stores them on the blockchain. Instead of storing the entire digital twin data on the blockchain, it stores verified copies in the form of cryptographic hashes, which are then used to verify the integrity of the original data. This approach ensures data reliability while minimizing the complexity of data management.
2Reliability
If blockchain technology is implemented to ensure data integrity and immutability, then unauthorized modifications are detected and reliability is improved, but storage overhead and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent stores only cryptographic hashes (compact digital fingerprints) of digital twin configurations on the blockchain rather than the full configuration data. These hashes are much smaller in size but provide the same verification function. This resolves the contradiction by enabling reliable configuration verification through blockchain while minimizing the quantity of data stored on the distributed ledger.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts only the essential verification element (cryptographic hash) from the complete digital twin configuration and stores it on the blockchain. The full configuration data remains in traditional storage systems, while the blockchain holds only the extracted hash for verification purposes. This separation reduces blockchain storage requirements while maintaining verification capabilities.
3Measurement precision
If frequent snapshots of digital twins are taken to track changes, then change detection accuracy is improved, but storage requirements and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates cryptographic hash copies of digital twin configurations at different time points and stores these hashes on the blockchain. Instead of storing complete configuration snapshots, it stores compact hash representations that enable precise change detection with minimal storage requirements. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining high measurement precision for change detection while reducing the quantity of stored data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent pre-computes and stores cryptographic hashes of digital twin configurations before actual changes occur. These pre-stored hashes serve as reference points for detecting subsequent changes. By performing this hashing action in advance, the system achieves accurate change detection without needing to store and process large volumes of historical configuration data.
Data Source
AI summary
Blockchain-enabled digital twins for industrial automation systems (e.g., using a computerized tool) are enabled. For example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, in response to execution, cause an industrial device comprising a processor to perform operations, the operations comprising: determining an equivalency of the configuration of the industrial automation component based on a comparison of the first configuration fingerprint with a second configuration fingerprint of the configuration of the industrial automation component generated at a second time, subsequent to the first time, determining an equivalency of the configuration of the industrial automation component based on a comparison of the first configuration fingerprint with a second configuration fingerprint of the configuration of the industrial automation component generated at the second time, and generating an output indicative of the equivalency of the digital twin and the equivalency of the configuration.