The precise evaluation of the system design and characteristics is a challenge for experts
and engineers. This paper considers the problem of the development and application of a digital
twin to assess cyberphysical systems. We analyze the details of digital twin applications at different
lifecycle stages. The work reviews and summarizes properties of models concerning the digital
and physical components of a cyberphysical system (CPS). The other issue of a CPS is increasing
cybersecurity threat for objects, so special attention is paid to the heterogeneous digital twin usage
scenarios to improve CPS cybersecurity. The article also details the heterogeneous digital twin’s
implementation for a real upper-level control system of a nuclear power plant. The presented
heterogeneous digital twin combines virtual machines with real equipment, namely hardware-inthe-loop (HiL) components. The achievements and drawbacks of the implemented model, including
single timescale maintaining challenges, are discussed.