Cyber - Physical Systems: Reality, dreams, and fantasy

Summary form only given. The integration of physical systems with networked sensing, computation networks, and embedded control with actuation has led to the emergence of a new generation of engineered systems, the Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Such systems emphasize the link between cyber space and physical environment (i.e., time, space, and energy). CPS represents the next generation of complex engineering systems. They are large scale dynamic systems that offer significant processing power while interacting across communication networks. CPS will help to solve the grand challenges of our society, such as, aging population, limited resources, sustainability, environment, mobility, security, health care, etc. Applications of CPS cover a wide band of economic, medical, and entertainment sectors. It includes; Transportation: automobiles, avionics, unmanned vehicles and smart roads; Large Scale Critical Infrastructure: bridges, mega buildings, power grid, defense systems; Health Care: medical devices, health management networks, telemedicine; Consumer Electronics: video games, audio/video processing, and mobile communication. Building Cyber-Physical Systems is not a trivial task. The difficulty arises from the existing gap in modeling and computing of the physical and cyber environments. The design process require new theories, models, and algorithms that unify both environments in one framework. None of the current state-of-the art methods are able to overcome the challenges of developing the unified CPS design paradigm.