Industrial Metaverse Architecture in the Automotive Sector

The transition from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0 aims to develop production systems that are more people-centered, sustainable, and resilient. An emerging concept that supports this evolution is the Industrial Metaverse, which integrates technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Big Data, and virtual environments to bridge physical and digital worlds. As this is a recent concept, few articles describe the actual application of the Industrial Metaverse. To overcome this problem, this paper presents Renault’s implementation of the Industrial Metaverse in the automotive sector, structured around a layered reference architecture. This article highlights the main challenges in implementing Industrial Metaverse, including data standardization, real-time monitoring, integrating heterogeneous systems, and exploiting augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies. Research directions are suggested to bridge the gap between the theoretical architectures of the Industrial Metaverse and the needs of manufacturers in the automotive industry.