Predictive Maintenance of an Archeological Park: An IoT and Digital Twin Based Approach

The preservation of cultural heritage is one of the main goals that a nation must pursue since it represents an important resource, both economically and for the historical memory it holds. Thanks to the spread of new technologies, the possibility of applying innovative approaches to historical heritage is becoming increasingly real, in order to monitor in real time the progressive damage of structures or intercept any sudden risk situations. In this scenario, a significant contribution is made by the paradigm of the Internet of Things, which enables the collection in real time, of data from sensors installed on the structures to be monitored, and the concept of the Digital Twin, which represents a digital copy of reality, and can be utilized for practical purposes, such as simulations and tests. To make the Digital Twin even more effective, it is possible to link it to the real structure through HBIM, which is a process that aims not only at the mere restitution of the tridimensional model but at the creation of so-called "smart models", in which all the components are parametric objects with well-defined semantics and capable of containing all the information useful for understanding the artifact. The paper, therefore, presents a methodology to consider HBIM models as Digital Twins enriched with data from real-time IoT devices placed on the structures to be monitored. The proposed methodology was applied to a real case study within the Velia Archaeological Park: Porta Rosa, which is the oldest known example of a round arch in Italy. The first results of the experiment are more than satisfactory.