Automotive
AAS and the Catena-X Ecosystem
What the Asset Administration Shell is, how the Catena-X dataspace works and how industrial digital product passports are published in that architecture.
The Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is the Industry 4.0 structure describing an asset's digital twin. In automotive and industrial manufacturing, DPP data is largely published as AAS submodels.
The submodel idea
An AAS holds the asset's identity and its attached submodels, each covering one topic:
| Submodel | Content |
|---|---|
| Digital Nameplate | Manufacturer, model, serial, year of manufacture |
| Technical Data | Technical specifications |
| Product Carbon Footprint | PCF values and methodology |
| Material Composition | Material breakdown |
| Circularity | Repair, disassembly, recycling |
| Handover Documentation | Handover documents |
That structure maps directly onto DPP field sets. See the DPP data model guide.
How Catena-X shares data
In Catena-X data is not pooled in a central platform. Instead:
- Each provider hosts its own data.
- The Digital Twin Registry records which asset has which submodels, and where.
- EDC connectors provide authenticated, policy-bound transfer.
- Usage policies define what the data may be used for.
See DPP in automotive and Catena-X.
The battery passport link
Catena-X and IDTA published a joint AAS guideline for the battery passport. The battery ecosystem uses both the Battery Pass data model and AAS templates — different serialisations of the same fields. See the battery passport guide and Annex XIII data fields.
AAS or JSON-LD?
This is an ecosystem question, not a religious one:
| AAS | JSON-LD | |
|---|---|---|
| Adoption | Automotive, industrial manufacturing | Consumer goods, textiles |
| Strength | Digital twin integration, OT world | Linked data, VC compatibility |
| Ecosystem | Catena-X, IDTA | CIRPASS-2, UNTP |
Practical advice: keep the canonical model in one place and generate whichever serialisation you need. See JSON-LD and DPP data.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to learn AAS?
If your customers are in automotive or industrial manufacturing, probably yes. For consumer goods it is not necessary.
Do I have to run an EDC connector?
Large suppliers operate their own; intermediary services exist for smaller ones.
Do AAS and the ESPR standards conflict?
No. EN 18223 provides the core model and semantics; AAS is a serialisation and twin architecture. Bridging work is under way.
