CS 851 Seminar

Cyber Physical Systems

Professor John A. Stankovic

Department of Computer Science

Spring 2009

Course Description

As computers and communication bandwidth become ever-faster and ever-cheaper, computing and communication capabilities will be embedded in all types of objects and structures in the physical environment.  Applications with enormous societal impact and economic benefit will be created by harnessing these capabilities in time and across space. We refer to systems that bridge the cyber-world of computing and communications with the physical world as cyber-physical systems. Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are physical and engineered systems whose operations are monitored, coordinated, controlled and integrated by a computing and communication core.  This intimate coupling between the cyber and physical will be manifested from the nano-world to large-scale wide-area systems of systems. The internet transformed how humans interact and communicate with one another, revolutionized how and where information is accessed, and even changed how people buy and sell in the marketplace.  Similarly, CPSs will transform how humans interact with and control the physical world around us.

Examples of CPSs include medical devices and systems, aerospace systems, transportation vehicles and intelligent highways, defense systems, robotic systems, process control, factory automation, Building and environmental control and smart spaces.  Since CPSs interact with the physical world, they must operate dependably, safely, securely, efficiently and in real-time.  

Building effective CPSs of the future require multi-disciplinary skills. In particular, the confluence of real-time computing, wireless sensor networks, control theory, signal processing and embedded systems are required to create these new systems. This seminar will cover some basic material from these areas, but focus on advanced research papers related to CPS.  
 

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