Digital twins are a key technology of industry 4.0 and are a powerful tool for operator training simulations (OTS). This work presents a digital twin for a bioprocess. Possible applications in higher education and corresponding learning objectives are presented and discussed. The digital twin is capable of simulating various upstream operation modes (e. g. batch, fed batch, chemostat) and also addresses the issue of automating those processes using sequential function charts (SFC). From a didactic point of view, digital twins have numerous advantages. Students can be introduced to complex issues in a vivid manner. Using a digital twin also reduces the fear of making errors or wrong decisions. Students can freely perform virtual experiments with different parameters and configurations, ultimately leading to a more confident operation of real processes.
Hofmann et al. (Mon,) studied this question.