Microservice-Based Architecture for Situation Awareness in Network Digital Twin
Carlos A. Gómez-Vega, Alessandro Vaccari, Francesco Ferrari, Riccardo Marini, Moe Z. Win, Andrea Conti · IEEE Networking Letters · 2025
Real-time digital twin of network functionalities and behaviors at different levels, namely network digital twin (NDT), is essential for efficient next-generation (xG) network and service management. To accurately represent and emulate the network behavior, NDT requires real-time situation awareness. This paper introduces a microservice-based architecture (MSA) for exposing situation awareness in NDT. Multimodal localization and sensing provide situational information of connected devices and unconnected targets employing heterogeneous technologies, namely xG, ultra-wideband, and radar. We propose a data model to describe generic assets incorporating situational information for its integration within NDT. A case study shows the functionalities of the proposed architecture in an industrial network considering a use case of mobile robots.