From space exploration to simulation technology, digital twin has become a high-frequency term in recent years.
In March 2011, Pamela A. Kobryn and Eric J. Tuegel from the Structural Mechanics Department of the US Air Force Research Laboratory gave a speech titled "Condition based Maintenance Plus Structural Integrity (CBM+SI)&the Airframe Digital Twin", which explicitly mentioned digital twins for the first time.
Around 2015, China also began to follow suit. At that time, several domestic research institutions and enterprises, including the Industry 4.0 Research Institute, launched research projects related to digital twins.
Since then, the concept of digital twins has become popular in the Internet and industry until today.
Brilliant  took the fast train of industrial transformation in its early years and was the first to enter the new world of smart airports.
Many newly built airports are actually building 'two airports', one is a modern civil engineering airport that is becoming increasingly beautiful, and the other is a smart airport with digital twins, "said Wang Xuefeng, Technical Director of Brilliant , at the 2021 International Forum on Sustainable Development Big Data
During the operation of the airport, it is necessary for the business systems of multiple departments such as personnel, vehicles, and aircraft to cooperate and work together. Therefore, ensuring the better and faster development of airports, how to ensure the sustainable development of smart airports from the top-level design, how to establish industry unified smart machine data standards, how to build industry unified smart airport information platforms, and how to avoid information security risks in the construction and application process of smart airports are all key issues that need to be addressed in building smart airports.
Brilliant utilizes digital twin technology and airport digital twin models to define an airport simulation and verification platform, which parameterizes the airport's operating environment (such as aircraft, vehicles, people, equipment, etc.) and operating status information (such as flight flow, passenger flow, operating rules, resource scheduling, etc.), and establishes a highly realistic airport that can be used for experimental verification. Wang Xuefeng mentioned in his speech.

Airports can be divided into four parts based on their business jurisdiction: airspace, flight area, terminal area, and public area.
Airspace is a high-risk area for flight safety accidents, influenced by various factors, especially weather, making prediction difficult. When defining the airspace model, the main elements involved are terrain, weather, route network, navigation station, etc. The airport digital twin models related to airspace mainly include flight procedure models, clearance models, arrival models, obstacle limitation models, meteorological models, etc. The establishment of airspace models is mainly aimed at achieving reasonable optimization of flights, clearance obstacle detection, flight conflict detection and resolution, meteorological simulation, and ensuring the safe operation of flights.

When defining the airfield model, the main elements involved are aircraft, vehicles, ground service personnel, facilities and equipment, etc. The airport digital twin models related to the airfield mainly include the airfield usage and operation rule model, taxiing model, aircraft position allocation model, flight support model, resource scheduling model, conflict detection model, etc. The definition of the airfield model is mainly to achieve functions such as reasonable allocation of apron positions, reasonable planning of vehicle and aircraft travel routes, conflict detection and resolution.

When defining the terminal area model, the main elements involved are passengers, service resources, road network and related facilities, rules, road network and related facilities, etc. The airport digital twin terminal area models driven by flight schedules and related to the terminal area mainly include passenger flow aggregation and evacuation models, entry and exit rule models, resource utilization and optimization capacity models, and passenger indoor path planning models. The definition of the terminal area model mainly realizes functions such as rational passenger flow arrangement and distribution, optimized allocation of passenger detention warning resources, and route navigation.

When defining the public area model, the main elements involved are people, vehicles, rules, road networks, and facilities. Driven by flight schedules, airport digital twin models related to public areas mainly include traffic operation rule models, passenger flow models, vehicle flow models, resource capacity models, etc. The definition of the public area model is to achieve functions such as traffic flow simulation, pedestrian flow simulation, and resource optimization configuration on the platform.

The goal of the airport verification platform defined based on the digital twin model is to enable users to obtain a replica of a real operating scenario airport environment by simply configuring parameters, providing design solutions, algorithms, parameters, and other verification platforms for designers, developers, learners, and operators. It scientifically evaluates resource capacity and optimizes operational efficiency, making the digital twin platform closer to the real world.