Digital Twin of eGastronomic Things: A Case Study for Ice Cream Machines

With the recent advancements in industry 4.0 new concepts like “Digital Twin” has been rising also for the gastronomy sector. Gastronomic processes like cooking, serving, presenting, and preparing food have evolved with the new trends utilizing Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). This paper presents an innovative concept of digital cloning of gastronomic devices, named as eGastronomic things, to monitor their functions and simulate their operations. Here, eGastronomic things have both real physical appearances and their digital counterparts presenting them as a living 3D model augmented with its real incorporating data. Such live data can be any sensory or instant data observed while the device is working, or any catalogue data, like the model name and the owner information, stored in a database. In order to prove the concept, a case study where the digital twin of an industrial ice cream machine (as an example of an eGastronomic thing) is presented. The ice cream machine and its 3D digital twin can be visualized in a 3D virtual environment which enables interaction through AR or VR. The digital twin of the machine is secured with an electronic IoT gateway embedded in the machine and incorporated with a data acquisition board. Thus, the device is protected against unauthenticated use by realizing a secure access control mechanism.