Towards trustworthy digital twins collaboration in the internet of things: an overview of essential design guidelines

The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), characterized by billions of interconnected devices represented by Digital Twins (DTs), poses significant challenges in ensuring reliable communication. While Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) offer a foundation for performance monitoring, they are insufficient in decentralized scenarios where devices frequently interact without knowing each other. In this context, Trust Management Systems (TMSs) emerge as a possible solution to support cooperation, evaluating the reliability of both data and DTs. In this context, this paper addresses the problem of trust in the IoT by modeling interactions among DTs through a game-theory approach, where each DT is seen as a game-rational player. Based on this model, we derive a set of design guidelines for the development of TMSs that consider both errors and malicious behaviours. Furthermore, we apply these guidelines to assess and compare several recognized TMSs from the literature, highlighting their strengths and limitations.