Human role in existing bridge digital twin frameworks, towards Industry 5.0

Abstract

Regardless of the current challenges and limitations of Digital Twins, there seems to be only one school of thought and a consensus toward their future adoption for design, construction, management, operation, and decommissioning of bridges. This novel paradigm surged within the Industry 4.0 context and was fostered by evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, big data, among others. Digital twins have now been recognized as an enabling technology towards the development and adoption of Industry 5.0 principles. Such principles are human-centrism, resilience, and sustainability. In this paper we explore the increasingly important role that humans will have within existing bridge digital twin frameworks and how the human-centrism principle could be better implemented within such context. Moreover, we also discuss how a successful implementation of human centrism could uphold and maximize the resilience and sustainability of existing bridges, especially those with cultural heritage value.