Cyber physical system (CPS) are coming in a very big way and developed countries are funding this research area like anything. But sometimes, some researchers argue that this is going to be another hype and an example of old wine in new bottle. How far is that correct? How is CPS different than the existing technologies of robotics, embedded systems, co-operative agent based systems, WSN, autonomous systems, etc? How can CPS research help future technological development?
There is also yet another addition to the list of things you mentioned - "Internet of Things."
The short answer is that CPS is a more comprehensive approach than embedded systems, real-time systems, communications, or control. In spirit it is close to mechatronics and control in being interdisciplinary, but it is intended to be much more interdisciplinary. The long answer can be found in the introduction to my lecture notes to a class that I teach on CPS, which are available online at bit.ly/LNCPS-2013
CPS is an integration of physical processes and digital computation that exposes its computing capability to the outside by networking without such exposure, it is merely an embedded system
Dear Prof. Taha,
Could you please give me a direct link to the lecture notes you are referring to above? Thank you very much.
Prof. Dr. Imre Horvath
TU Delft
I'd like weigh in on the CPS vs IoT difference. It appears that IoT puts more focus on the first steps of the adaptation cycle: sensing, monitoring, and data analytics. CPS focuses more on the later part of the cycle: reasoning, planning, and actuation (which usually has to be correct to avoid critical failures).
That being said, there is a large gray area of overlap between CPS and IoT, and many ideas apply to both domains.
Dr. Ruchkin, I very much agree with the principle of demarcation you have proposed. In our terminology we also use the terms 'active infrastructure' and 'knowledgeable actor' to distinguish IoT-flavored systems from CPS-flavored systems. Since IoT may include smart actor nodes, and CPS may need active infrastructure, the overlap is undeniable.
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