DT-DAO: Digital Twin and Blockchain-Based DAO Integration Framework for Smart Building Facility Management

Abstract

Digital Twin (DT) technology provides a comprehensive virtual representation and dynamic mirror of the physical infrastructure, which is invaluable for Facility Management (FM) applications. However, its operations and sensitive data are managed by the centralized infrastructure, which is relatively vulnerable to being compromised. To address these problems, this paper proposes DT-DAO, a conceptual blockchain-based framework integrating Digital Twin (DT) and Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Given the immutable nature of blockchain technology, the DT-DAO framework can strengthen the security and resilience of the DT. Moreover, taking advantage of the DAO’s decentralized governance mechanism, task automation capabilities, and the real-time sensory data retrieved from the physical assets, DT-DAO can also be used to create an autonomous physical asset (e.g., smart buildings, infrastructure) that can have its operations run automatically and autonomously as predefined in the smart contract. In addition, this paper also provides potential use cases of DT-DAO in smart building FM.