Cover photo credits: IStockphoto

Disclaimer: Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this 

document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately. Such 

identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that the entities, materials, 

or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose
Foundations for Innovation in 

Cyber-Physical Systems

WORKSHOP REPORT

January 2013

Prepared by 

Energetics Incorporated

Columbia, Maryland

For the 

National Institute of Standards and Technology
Acknowledgments

Many thanks to all those who participated in the workshop Foundations for Innovation in 

Cyber-Physical Systems held March 13-14, 2012 in Rosemont, Illinois. The presentations 

and discussions that took place at the workshop provided the foundation for this report. A 

complete list of attendees is provided in Appendix A. Special thanks are extended to the 

members of the workshop steering committee and plenary speakers, listed below. 

Steering Committee

Susan Ying, Boeing

Janos Sztipanovits, Vanderbilt University

David Corman, Boeing

Venkatesh Prasad, Ford

Isaac Cohen Director, United Technologies Research Center

Pieter Mosterman, MathWorks

Lonny Stormo, Medtronic, Inc.

Jim Davis, UCLA and Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition

Himanshu Khurana, Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions

Plenary Speakers

David Vasko, Rockwell Automation

Joseph D’Ambrosio, General Motors

Brent Brunell, General Electric

Leonard Radtke, Medtronic

Susan Ying, Boeing

William Sanders, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Shankar Sastry, University of California-Berkeley

Allen Fazio, Disney Theme Parks & Resorts

George Pappas, University of Pennsylvania

Feng Zhao, Microsoft Research, Asia

Marilyn Wolf, Georgia Institute of Technology

Joan Pellegrino, Energetics Incorporated

Special thanks are due to the Energetics Incorporated team who provided support for 

workshop planning, facilitation, and preparation of the workshop summary report. 

.
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems v

Workshop Summary Report

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments .......................................................................................iv

1.0 Introduction ...........................................................................................1

1.1 Cyber-Physical Systems ........................................................................ 1

1.2 Workshop and Report Overview ............................................................ 2

2.0 Reliable, Safe, and Secure Systems You Can Trust Your Life With ....3

2.1 Vision..................................................................................................... 3

2.2 Transformative Ideas ............................................................................. 4

2.3 Challenges............................................................................................. 5

3.0 Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive Systems...................... 12

3.1 Vision................................................................................................... 12

3.2 Transformative Ideas ........................................................................... 13

3.3 Challenges........................................................................................... 14

4.0 Engineering across the Digital-Physical Divide ................................. 21

4.1 Vision................................................................................................... 21

4.2 Transformative Ideas ........................................................................... 22

4.3 Challenges........................................................................................... 23

5.0 Architecture and Platforms for Cyber-Physical Systems ................... 29

5.1 Vision................................................................................................... 29

5.2 Transformative Ideas ........................................................................... 30

5.3 Challenges........................................................................................... 31

6.0 Education, Workforce Training, and Technology Transition.............. 39

6.1 Vision................................................................................................... 39

6.2 Transformative Ideas ........................................................................... 40

6.3 Challenges........................................................................................... 40

7.0 Application-Specific Challenges......................................................... 46

6.4 Smart Manufacturing............................................................................ 46

6.5 Infrastructure for Smart Grid and Utilities............................................. 46
vi Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

6.6 Smart Buildings and Infrastructure....................................................... 47

6.7 Smart Transportation and Mobility ....................................................... 47

6.8 Smart Healthcare................................................................................. 48

8.0 References ......................................................................................... 48

Participants................................................................................................ 49

Acronyms/ Abbreviations........................................................................... 52

Tables

Table 2-1. Vision for Reliability, Safety, and Security in CPS..........................................3

Table 2-2. Transformative Ideas for Achieving Reliability, Safety, and Security in 

Future CPS............................................................................................4

Table 2-3. Barriers and Challenges for Reliability, Safety, and Security..........................6

Table 3-1. Vision for Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive Systems .................12

Table 3-2. Transformative Ideas for the Future State of Networked, Cooperating, 

Human-Interactive Systems .................................................................13

Table 3-3. Barriers and Challenges for Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive 

Systems ...............................................................................................15

Table 4-1. Vision for Engineering Across the Digital-Physical Divide ............................21

Table 4-2. Transformative Ideas for Engineering Across the Digital-Physical Divide.....22

Table 4-3. Barriers and Challenges for Engineering Across the Digital-Physical 

Divide...................................................................................................24

Table 5-1. Vision for Architecture and Platforms for CPS..............................................29

Table 5-2. Transformative Ideas for Architecture and Platforms for CPS......................30

Table 5-3. Barriers and Challenges for Architecture and Platforms for CPS .................32

Table 6-1. Vision for Education, Workforce Training, and Technology Transition .........39

Table 6-2. Transformative Ideas for Future CPS Education, Workforce Training, and 

Technology Transition..........................................................................40

Table 6-3. Barriers and Challenges for Education, Workforce Training, and 

Technology Transition..........................................................................41

Figures

Figure 2-1. Structural Frameworks for High Fidelity Models............................................8

Figure 2-2. Universal Definitions for Large Heterogeneous Systems ..............................9

Figure 2-3. Cost Effective Verification and Validation of Complex CPS ........................10

Figure 2-4. Objective, Measurable, and Comparable Design Metrics for Reliability 

and Safety............................................................................................11
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems vii

Workshop Summary Report

Figure 3-1. Natural, Seamless Interaction Between Humans and CPS........................ 18

Figure 3-2. Uncertainty Characterization and Quantification ........................................ 19

Figure 3-3. Interconnected and Interoperable Shared Development Infrastructure ...... 20

Figure 4-1. Abstraction Infrastructure to Bridge Digital and Physical System 

Components........................................................................................ 25

Figure 4-2. Testing and Certification of Compositional Systems .................................. 26

Figure 4-3. Cost Effective and Secure System Design, Analysis, and Construction ..... 27

Figure 5-1. Scientific-Based Metrics for Security, Privacy, Safety, and Resilience ....... 34

Figure 5-2. Systematic Structured Design and Process Integration.............................. 35

Figure 5-3. Correctness of CPS in the Presence of Environmental Uncertainty ........... 36

Figure 5-4. Trustworthy, Holistic Infrastructure for CPS Evaluation.............................. 37

Figure 5-5. Managing the Role of Time in Architecture Design .................................... 38

Figure 6-1. Multi-Department CPS Degrees and Resources........................................ 43

Figure 6-2. Dynamic Training and Certification in CPS ................................................ 44

Figure 6-3. Value Proposition of CPS Research .......................................................... 45

Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 1

Workshop Summary Report

1.0 Introduction

1.1 CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEMS

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) can be described as smart systems that encompass 

computational (i.e., hardware and software) and physical components, seamlessly 

integrated and closely interacting to sense the changing state of the real world. These 

systems involve a high degree of complexity at numerous spatial and temporal scales and 

highly networked communications integrating computational and physical components. 

CPS are enabling a new generation of ‘smart systems’ – and the economic impacts could be 

enormous. The disruptive technologies emerging from combining the cyber and physical 

worlds could provide an innovation engine for a broad range of U.S. industries, creating 

entirely new markets and platforms for growth (see Figure 1-1). New products and services 

will bring the creation and retention of U.S. jobs. The nation will also benefit through greater 

energy and national security, enhanced U.S. competitiveness, and improved quality of life 

for citizens.

A number of reports have focused on the 

importance of CPS and the need to pursue 

R&D that will establish U.S. leadership in the 

field and enhance competitiveness in global 

markets (PCAST 2012, PCAST 2011; 

PCAST 2010, NITRD 2009). Improving 

public health and safety is also a national 

priority where CPS can have a significant 

impact. The European Union is already 

investing $343 million per year for 10 years 

to pursue “world leadership” through 

advanced strategic research and technology 

development related to CPS (include $199 

million per year in public funds and $144 

million year in private funds) (EU 2012). 

Cyber-physical systems are rapidly 

becoming critical to the business success of many companies and the mission success of 

many government agencies. In transportation, manufacturing, telecommunications, 

consumer electronics, and health and medical equipment, and intelligent buildings the value 

share of electronics, computing, communications, sensing, and actuation is expected to 

exceed 50% of the cost by the end of the decade. CPS technologies, in the form of 

Figure 1-1. Applications of CPS

Manufacturing: smart production equipment, processes, 

automation, control, and networks; new product design

Transportation: intelligent vehicles and traffic control, 

intelligent structures and pavements 

Infrastructure: smart utility grids and smart buildings/ 

structures 

Health Care: body area networks and assistive systems 

Emergency Response: detection and surveillance systems, 

communication networks, and emergency response 

equipment 

Defense: soldier equipment systems, weapons systems and 

systems of systems, logistics 
2 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

advanced robotics, computer-controlled processes, and real-time integrated systems, are 

critical for improving U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. 

As systems continue to evolve they will rely less on human decision-making and more on 

computational intelligence. As we become more dependent on CPS, the challenge is to 

design systems that are dependable, reliable, safe, and secure. 

1.2 WORKSHOP AND REPORT OVERVIEW

In view of recent reports and the potential opportunities for economic growth and 

competitiveness, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) sponsored a 

workshop Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems on March 13-14, 2012 in 

Chicago, Illinois to identify crosscutting technical barriers and knowledge gaps limiting 

innovation and U.S. competitiveness in CPS. Particular attention was given to current and 

future technology and measurement capabilities that can fill in these knowledge gaps. 

Five technical topics were considered during the workshop: 

 Reliable, Safe, and Secure Systems You Can Trust Your Life With

 Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive Systems

 Engineering Across the Digital-Physical Divide

 Architecture and Platforms for Cyber-Physical Systems

 Education, Workforce Training, and Technology Transition

The ideas generated during the workshop are summarized in this report and organized 

around the breakout topics shown above. For each topic area, discussions are summarized 

for the future envisioned for CPS systems and technologies, transformative ideas, and the 

priority challenges that need to be addressed. In addition, some of the unique sector-specific 

challenges are described.

It should be noted that the results presented in this report reflect the opinions and ideas of 

the workshop participants, not necessarily the entire CPS community. However, a significant 

effort was made to ensure that participants represented all segments of the stakeholders 

involved with the development and use of CPS community.

The workshop results will be used to inform strategic planning efforts at NIST and provide 

planning information to other government agencies, customers, and stakeholders with a vital 

interest in the future of CPS technologies. As a follow-on to this workshop summary report, a 

high-level perspective will be published outlining some of the high priority recommendations 

for future research and development.
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 3

Workshop Summary Report

2.0 Reliable, Safe, and 

Secure Systems You 

Can Trust Your Life 

With

Issues of reliability, safety, and security play a large role in the acceptance and use of the 

cyber-physical systems of today and the future. Some of the key challenges to be 

considered include what is needed to cost effectively and rapidly build in and assure safety, 

dependability, security, and performance of next-generation cyber-physical systems; how to 

ensure these systems become fault tolerant and adaptive; and developing the mechanisms 

and methods for efficiently upgrading and recertifying systems.

2.1 VISION

For CPS to be reliable, safe, and secure, systems must be able to adapt to the physical 

environment and withstand both cyber and physical attacks while maintaining data integrity 

and robustness. Visionary characteristics range from improved management of system 

development and lifecycle to cost-effective verification and validation of CPS. The vision for 

the reliability, safety, and security of CPS are summarized in Table 2-1.

Table 2-1. Vision for Reliability, Safety, and Security in CPS

 Future CPS characteristics will be bio-inspired, self-healing, adaptive, and resilient to attacks. CPS safety and 

security will be designed using a compositional approach. Total system development and lifecycle management will be 

completed with an understanding of the tradeoffs concerning the economics of reliability and safety. 

 Metrics for reliability, safety, and security will be both quantifiable and comparable among systems. The regulatory 

environment will achieve a balance of regulation framework and incentives to promote CPS development. A design 

methodology will be developed that can define prescribed levels of reliability, safety, and security. 

 The cost of verification will decrease ten-fold for the same level of safety and reliability. Verification will take 

advantage of logic that integrates continuous, discrete, and stochastic system and engineering compositionality.

 CPS applications will span a broad segment of industry and academia, with notable advances. For example, future 

CPS in intelligent traffic control systems will be adaptive and responsive, capable of optimizing performance criteria, 

such as fuel consumption or idling time. Low-cost medical technologies will be able to use off-the-shelf devices to 

capture medical conditions of patients and transmit data reliably and securely to doctors.
4 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

2.2 TRANSFORMATIVE IDEAS

A number of transformative ideas that could improve or revolutionize the reliability, safety, 

and security of CPS were identified (see Table 2-2). 

Table 2-2. Transformative Ideas for Achieving Reliability, Safety, and Security in 

Future CPS

Science and Engineering Foundations 

 Incorporate knowledge integration from multiple sources (physics-based model, data, and expert knowledge) to 

understand fault-error-symptom characteristics 

 Devise monitoring mechanisms to accurately detect incipient faults and perform system recovery from adverse 

conditions

 Use tools that can model, synthesize, and analyze high-dimensional probabilistic systems, which balance 

performance, fidelity, and scalability

 Enhance high-level programming languages, verified runtime, and virtualization

 Achieve safety through prediction and adaption by automatic understanding of societal environment and human 

interactions, enabled by the ability to read human brains

 Design future artifacts to be highly actuated and instrumented, with resilience enabled by massive redundancy

Develop swarm intelligence to build systems that adapt given a set of optimization criteria

Modeling and Computation

 Operate systems based on models of all connected entities adapting their behavior as connected entities change

 Apply a compositional, model-based (formal) approach to system development, enabling low-cost creation of 

assurance cases (safety, security)

 Use quantum computing to explore large state spaces for validation

 Apply knowledge and experience from digital circuit design to model synthesis and CPS implementation, so that CPS 

can be constructed directly from a model 

 Use goal-based programming as opposed to programming for specifications

 Build optimization into infrastructure of CPS using ensemble optimization and loading

 Improve correct-ability to keep pace with market-sourced verification which relies on extremely fast feedback cycles

Systems Integration

 Build a property gateway that ensures safety, reliability, and security of interacting subsystems

 Focus on systems architecture to yield outcomes (concept of operations focus) underlying modularity and 

independence to enable economical systems

 Develop systems that manage themselves toward graceful and non-disruptive failure and build on platform of systemwide built-in self-test

Metrics

 Develop systems that continuously re-construct themselves (virtually and physically), with the system life defined by 

the trajectory in an expanding design space with a sequence of instantiations as needed

 Include metadata in representational state transfer-like interfaces to support resilience

 Synthesize code and proofs from high-level specifications

 Use embedded privacy systems agents to ensure systems do not compromise data privacy concerns
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 5

Workshop Summary Report

Table 2-2. Transformative Ideas for Achieving Reliability, Safety, and Security in 

Future CPS

Technology Applications

Biology and Medicine

 Use antibodies and lymphatic systems as a model in system design and cyber-physical agents

 Develop CPS with biological traits that can evolve/reproduce, lower energy use, and incorporate chemistry

 Develop non-invasive systems to record a person’s daily work patterns that can be used by doctors to predict his/her 

future health condition

Infrastructure

 Develop warning system for buildings and bridges so that active dampers can be automatically tuned to specific 

earthquake characteristics 

Transportation

 Implement vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-controller communications, which provide safety metrics (e.g., safety 

distance) for the vehicles and controller to avoid collisions

 Develop future vehicles that can communicate seamlessly with environment, including infrastructure (e.g., traffic 

control), drivers (e.g., sensing fatigue), other cars, and buildings 

 Receive upcoming traffic information from the sensors and model it to determine the optimal traffic signal timings 

instead of using fixed traffic signal timings

2.3 CHALLENGES

A number of challenges were identified that impede the development of reliable, safe, and 

secure CPS (see Table 2-3). From these, a set of high priority challenges were selected for

more in-depth discussion. These are described below and in detail in Figures 2-1 to 2-4. 

Structural Frameworks for High Fidelity Models: Formal, precise models at the 

appropriate level of abstraction are lacking for CPS design. These models must include 

precise specification of properties relevant to the purpose of the model. Development of 

these models could reduce project duration and costs while improving design quality, 

performance, resilience, and dependability. Aerospace, defense, transportation and other 

industries could use these models for safety-relevant and high-reliability systems. Figure 2-1 

provides additional details about this challenge.

Universal Definitions for Large Heterogeneous Systems: Developing a method to align 

CPS is complicated by the lack of a common definition and language for large 

heterogeneous systems. An improved, consistent set of definitions would lower integration 

and development costs, and clarify top-to-bottom system behavior. Figure 2-2 provides 

additional details about this challenge.

Cost-effective Verification and Validation of Complex CPS: Verification and validation 

(V&V) of complex CPS is challenged by V&V of the whole system, extreme cost pressures, 

and incorporating multiple time scales. Cost effective methods of verifying and validating 

CPS are needed to increase reliability, reduce recalls, and decrease system verification

cost. Figure 2-3 provides additional details about this challenge.
6 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

Objective, Measurable, and Comparable Design Metrics for Reliability and Safety:

Design metrics need to be developed to be objective, measureable, and comparable over 

time. One major challenge is developing design metrics with sufficient flexibility to be 

applicable to a wide variety of situations. While difficult to develop, the design metrics are 

required in all phases of CPS technology including design, testing, deployment, and ongoing 

operation. Figure 2-4 provides additional details about this challenge.

Table 2-3. Barriers and Challenges for CPS Reliability, Safety, and Security

(● = one vote)

Metrics and Tools for CPS Verification, and Validation

High Priority

 Limited metrics for reliability and regulating a certain minimum level of reliability 

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

 Increasing coverage of verification and validation while reducing costs ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

 Coping with complexity and scale of systems when performing verification and validation 

●●●●●●●

Medium Priority

 Lack of parametric and non-parametric performance models ●●

 Lack of models for verification research and associated component model libraries for 

compose-able and verifiable CPS ●●

Lower Priority

 Limited prediction capability in coupled systems (i.e., degradation of one system affects 

another) and metrics for estimating system-level reliability ●

– Existing algorithms are component-centric

– Translation of component or subsystem reliability to system-level reliability

 Lack of methods for measuring level of security ●

 No agreement on framework or standards for quantitative, acceptable safety or reliability, 

including assurance cases and arguments (rather than check lists)

 Lack of methods to perform trusted security evaluation of software

Modeling Fidelity

High Priority

 Inability to apply formal methods at appropriate abstraction levels, especially for a typical 

engineer (e.g., Z is a “write only” language) and lack of formality in modeling (unified modeling 

language and systems modeling) ●●●●●●●●

Lower Priority

 Unknown levels of model fidelity needed to simulate CPS systems ●

 Unreliable testing-based methods for complex systems with software; formal methods are not 

integrated effectively with commercial tools 

Systems Integration and Compositionality

High Priority  Interoperating various modules and unifying standards from different domains and sectors 

●●●●●

Medium Priority

 Lack of clear ownership of performance interfaces (e.g., between code, hardware, multiple 

vendor interfaces) ●●●

 Difficulty developing self-diagnosis output that is understandable by humans ●●●

 Lack of good systems engineering and architecture practices to fully enable CPS ●●

 Formalizing and modularizing specifications for large systems where possible ●●

Lower Priority  Lack of infrastructure to link CPS systems to each other, other infrastructure, and integrated 
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 7

Workshop Summary Report

Table 2-3. Barriers and Challenges for CPS Reliability, Safety, and Security

(● = one vote)

control mechanisms

 Limited ability to engineer ultra large systems of deeply heterogeneous systems technologies ●

 Deficient methods for handling emergent behaviors in integrated systems 

Compositionality

High Priority

 Achieving compositionality of heterogeneous systems for safety, security, and reliability: 

●●●●●

– Precise property taxonomies

– Metrics that can be formalized

– Standard, virtual test benches for evaluating metrics

– Mathematical models for design spaces
8 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Including all the right properties

•Using the right level of precision for properties

•Specifying the right scope, pre-conditions, and 

assumptions

•Verifying the model

•Determining how to show consistency between models

Performance Targets

•Measured acceptance of the approach in CPS community

•Reduction in maintenance costs and complexity unit

•Reusability of design assets (models)

•Reduction in design and verification cost per complexity 

unit

Potential Applications

•Aerospace and defense

•Energy (smart grid)

•Medical 

•Automotive and other transportation

•Other safety-relevant and high-reliability systems

Benefits/Impacts

•Code synthesis

•Test synthesis

•Automated test execution

•Reduction in project time/cost

•Reduction in delivered defect rate

•Improvement in design quality and performance

•Improved reuse of models

•Potential for improved resilience and dependability of 

systems

Major Tasks 

•Construct an ontology of model types

•Conduct education, mentoring, and training on highfidelity modeling

•Create process assets (e.g., tasks, guidance, checklists, 

examples, templates, tools)

•Create tooling to automate some parts of modeling 

(construction, mining, translation, checking, verification)

•Explore consensus on a CPS model paradigm 

•Construct industry-specific and problem domain-specific 

CPS reference models 

Key Milestones 

•CPS modeling ontologies

•Standard set of modeling practices

•Adaptation of process assets to industry- and problemspecific standards

•Wide-spread adoption of rigorous modeling tools

•Release of model-designed CPS systems

Figure 2-1. Structural Frameworks for High Fidelity Models

There is a lack of formal, precise models at the right level of abstraction for the design of cyber physical systems. 

These models must include precise specification of properties relevant to the purpose of the model.

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry: System software, test (hire engineers, grad students); build systems, manage, use approaches and tools

Academia: Educate workforce (in modeling), research on approaches and tools and theory of CPS

Government: Create standards, regulate, commission systems

Industry Tool Vendors: Build tools, codify practices

Consumers: Buy products and provide feedback to industry
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 9

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Inability to measure how well system is integrated and/or 

performs

•Inabilty to meaure the correctness of requirements

•Inability to measure how “good” the solution is within the 

context of the entire system

Performance Targets

•Key CPS industries compliance to standard definitions by 

2017

•Key suppliers (sub-systems) compliance to standard 

definitions (or standard interface) by 2019

Potential Applications

•All ultra-large cyber-physical systems incorporating 

multiple technologies and heterogenous groups

Benefits/Impacts

•Lower cost of integration

•Less expensive and lengthy development

•More clarity on top-to-bottom system behavior

Major Tasks 

•Develop a way to universally (and visually) represent 

heterogeneous system behavior

•Develop a way to provide real-time feedback on impact of 

local decisions up to systems scale to satellite decision 

bodies

•Complete virtual systems integration early during 

subsystem development

Key Milestones 

•Meeting of cross organizational and disciplinary teams on 

the topic of standardizing system modeling techniques 

and definition

•Agreement on parameters that should be standardized

Figure 2-2. Universal Definitions for Large Heterogeneous Systems

A standard method is needed for aligning a large, heterogeneous group of systems technologies, including 

technology, specific applications, human elements, and time and space. Aligning these groups would help to 

collectively accomplish key outcomes using an effective, non-iterative approach. In addition to the lack of a common 

definition or description for such systems, a common language is also lacking (e.g., German, English, Mandarin, etc.).

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry/Subsystem Developers: accountable for aligning around concept description and strategy for articulating system 

definitions; test and use approaches

Standards Organizations: Support standard development
10 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Fidelity and coverage of V&V models

•Percentage of systems covered by testing and V&V

•Determining what percentage of thread model is covered 

by V&V and testing

•Degree to which system can detect and respond to 

unknowns

Performance Targets

•10-fold cost reduction in V&V of complex CPS

Potential Applications

•Broad range of industries,from energy to medical to 

buildings to transportation

Benefits/Impacts

•Increased reliability

•Greater value, including more features, higher-performing 

systems, lower cost

•Greater certainty in system performance

•Higher quality and fewer recalls

Major Tasks 

•Establish precise abstraction relationship between models 

included in V&V

•Explore pathways to compositionality

•Develop abilities for quantitative verification

•Establish the safety and security envelope

•Develop advanced computational methods (e.g., quantum 

simulation, satisfiability (SAT) solving)

•Integratie simulation with V&V, integrating specific logics 

and tools

Key Milestones 

•Creation of benchmark problems and comparison of 

various approaches

•Complete V&V of a know application, e.g., single-engine 

small amphibious vehicles with autonomous mission 

controller (10,000 lines of code in embedded code)

Figure 2-3. Cost-effective Verification and Validation of

Complex CPS

The current challenges of verification and validation (V&V) of complex CPS include whole system V&V, the extreme 

cost pressures of conducting V&V, and incorporating multiple time scales, as well as discrete, continuous, and 

stochastic elements.

Stakeholders and Roles 

Universities and Research Labs: Conduct research

Government: Support studies, apply approaches and techniques

Industry: Apply approaches and techniques
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 11

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Difficulty creating consistent or common metrics for 

application -and situation-specific conditions for safety, 

resilience, and reliability

•Large and diverse number of systems that require 

effective metrics for reliability and safety

Performance Targets

•Design phase: metrics/measurements used to build in the 

desired safety, resilience, and reliability or SRR (much of 

this already exists – load, jitter, delay, etc.)

•Test phase: metrics/measurements used to test desiresd 

characteristics/built-in SRR but limited in testing (scale, 

severe conditions, malicious/stupid behavior)

•Deployment: metrics/measurements of system behavior 

that relate to SSR

•Ongoing operations: predictive/steady state/emergent 

property metrics or measurements that give indication of 

emerging issues

Potential Applications

•Cyber-security of infrastructure (defense, energy, 

buildings, roads, bridges)

•Broad range of CPS across multiple industrial sectors

•Health care and financial systems

Benefits/Impacts

•Increased reliability and safety of critical systems

•Greater certainty in system performance

Major Tasks 

•Develop risk framework for coming up with acceptable 

levels of SRR

•Develop metrics/ measurements at the meta level for 

each situation

•Create metrics/measurements to underly the meta level 

metrics (strength of materials, load, etc.)

•Develop solid cyber metrics/measurements (strength of 

code, security, etc.)

Key Milestones 

•Complete design phase , incorporating risk frameworks

•Complete test phase using meta and sub-metrics

•Refine metrics and measurements based on test results

•Deploy metrics in a variety of systems and continue to 

test/refine

Figure 2-4. Objective, Measurable, and Comparable Design Metrics 

for Reliability and Safety

There is a need for the development of metrics for reliability and safety in a wide variety of CPS. These metrics will 

support more than system reliability; they can also be used to formulate regulations for a minimum level of 

reliability.

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry: Participate in metrics development and test

Research Labs: Develop and test metrics

Academia: Conduct supporting research and development
12 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

3.0 Networked, 

Cooperating, HumanInteractive Systems

Cyber-physical systems can be highly connected and integrated in multiple ways, even 

across business operations and domain boundaries. Achieving effectively networked, 

cooperating, and human-interactive systems will be an integral factor in the adoption of such 

systems in the future. Some of the key questions to be considered include what is needed to 

enable streamlined and predictable development, deployment, and evolution of networked 

and integrated cyber-physical systems, particularly as systems become interconnected with 

legacy systems and across industry boundaries; how to effectively achieve compositionality 

within heterogeneous, dissimilar but connected systems; and how to model and integrate

the role of humans in systems with variable levels of autonomy.

3.1 VISION

The ongoing implementation of an increasing number of CPS requires developers to 

consider how new, highly networked systems will interconnect with legacy systems, across 

industry boundaries, and with humans. New systems will have characteristics that enable 

compositionality within dissimilar but connected systems, while also considering the 

integration of humans into systems with variable levels of autonomy. The vision for the 

future of networked, cooperating, human-interactive systems addresses these issues and is 

outlined in Table 3-1 below.

Table 3-1. Vision for Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive Systems

Overarching Vision

In the future, networked, cooperating, human-interactive systems will optimize the power of human operations through 

high levels of situation awareness and adaptability. These dynamic and predictive systems will learn as they operate to 

maximize performance and resiliency, creating safe, secure, and reliable systems that can function as autonomously as 

desired by human systems designers. A level of certification will also be incorporated into these systems to enhance 

inter-system connectivity. While humans will interact more seamlessly with the CPS of the future, the ethical issues 

surrounding the human-machine interaction will be resolved prior to determining whether the human role will be as the 

operators of the machines (“human-in-the-loop”) or as the partners of the machines (“human-in-the-mesh”). As emergent 

system behavior begins to occur, humans will monitor and determine both its positive and negative effects on overall 

system operation.
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3.2 TRANSFORMATIVE IDEAS

As stated in the vision, networked, cooperating, human-interactive systems will play an 

integral role in optimizing human operations in the future. With the potential for humans and 

machines to operate more seamlessly and systems to interconnect better than ever before, 

the possible advances that these new systems can enable are practically limitless. Radical 

possibilities include everything from enabling machines and humans to act more like one 

another, to improving data collection for better productivity, to taking better care of human 

health and welfare. For example, CPS could be used to enable humans to achieve complex 

tasks with minimum specialized education and skills, making the systems themselves more 

efficient and productive while opening up employment opportunities to more people. A set of 

radical ideas for the next generation of networked, cooperating, human-interactive systems 

is outlined in Table 3-2 below.

Table 3-2. Transformative Ideas for the Future State of Networked, Cooperating, 

Human-Interactive Systems

Human-Machine Interaction

 Use CPS to improve understanding of human knowledge and behavior so that machines know how and why humans 

make certain decisions

 Develop machines with a transparent understanding of human intent and desire

 Create a collective consciousness shared by machines and humans

 Integrate CPS to the point where people behave more like machines and machines behave more like humans

 Develop robots that are fully capable of interpreting human brain signals and controlling humans

 Develop self-learning and autonomous robots, such as robots that can learn to smell

Information/Knowledge Collection

 Create CPS that can effectively collect, organize, and present data and use it to offer assumption-based options and 

consequences

 Develop a game-ified world in which systems interact to maximize what humans are capable of at both a local and 

global level

 Build machines that can learn and adapt to a human’s personal communication style and interests and provide 

relevant and overlooked data to him/her as needed

 Develop perfectly efficient systems

 Create an “internet of things” that collect and organize information all over a person’s daily life

 Cultivate a searchable, indexed world that would prevent humans from losing things

 Use CPS to explore space and find new planets

Workforce

 Enable humans to achieve complex tasks with minimum specialized education and skills

 Use CPS to ensure that everyone who desires a meaningful job has a meaningful job

 Use CPS to reduce and/or eliminate accidental, industrial-related injuries and deaths

Transport and Civil Infrastructure

 Create and implement smart utilities that integrate electricity, water, and gas

 Develop CPS that optimizes multi-modal travel
14 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Table 3-2. Transformative Ideas for the Future State of Networked, Cooperating, 

Human-Interactive Systems

 Use CPS to reduce and/or eliminate transportation-related injuries and deaths

 Develop secure and reliable wireless technology

 Use CPS to minimize and/or eliminate the impact of deviant human behavior

 Create an “Iron Man” that integrates transportation, communication, and defense knowledge with degrees of power 

and responsibility

Human Welfare

 Create smart, sustainable agriculture with CPS that can improve productivity to feed the world and prevent starvation

 Design CPS that can rebuild the world after natural disaster

 Develop systems that can provide caregivers with the real-time status of children

 Create smart homes that can take care of humans and themselves

 Develop robots that can serve as geriatric caregivers

 Use CPS to empower all people with physical, mental, and/or cognitive disabilities so that they can operate in a world 

that is not designed for them

 Apply swarm technology for pest control applications

Medical Devices and Healthcare

 Enable non-stop ambulatory personal health monitoring with CPS that can diagnose problems in real time

 Develop health systems that not only treat humans when there are problems but also keep humans healthy throughout 

their lives

 Develop autonomous robots that can perform brain surgery or emergency room duties

 Create hospitals where work is divided seamlessly between man and machine

3.3 CHALLENGES

Systems must overcome a number of barriers and challenges to attain higher networking 

and connectivity and to address issues regarding the human-machine interface, as identified 

in Table 3-3. A set of high priority challenges were selected for more in-depth discussion. 

These are described below and in detail in Figures 3-1 to 3-3. 

Natural, Seamless Interaction Between Humans and CPS: There is a need to better 

model human strengths and weaknesses and corresponding machine strengths and 

weaknesses. Such models will enable a more natural, seamless interaction between 

humans and CPS and will help to manage risks and safety as systems move toward mixedinitiative modes of operation. Specific applications for these models include human-machine 

cooperative manufacturing, vehicles and transportation systems, warfighting, smart 

buildings, health care, and home care assistance. Figure 3-1 provides additional details on 

this challenge.

Uncertainty Characterization and Quantification: System uncertainty must be 

characterized and quantified in order to understand the implications of the inputs and their 

variability on system operation. Characterization and quantification of uncertainty will 

improve understanding of the potential risks to system operation, enable design feedback 
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 15

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and facilitate graceful system degradation. The result will be robust and resilient systems 

that can maintain the same quality and level of service even under duress. The 

characterization and quantification of uncertainty would be particularly beneficial in the 

automotive, health care, manufacturing, and renewable energy industries. Figure 3-2 

provides additional details on this challenge.

Interconnected and Interoperable Shared Development Infrastructure: The current 

market does not have governance or business models in place to motivate the development 

of networked, cooperating, human-interactive systems. Developers must assume the risk of 

sharing proprietary information with competitors and the liability of integrating their systems 

with external systems to ensure high levels of performance and functionality. Building an 

infrastructure foundation that is interoperable, contains open source and proprietary 

information in balance, and operates under the same standards will provide a protected 

starting point from which interoperable issues are minimized and system development could 

be profitable. For example, automatic car producers will have to work with each other and

with traffic regulating infrastructure to develop functional products. Building from a standard 

foundation will save time and cost by sharing critical information and will avoid the liability of 

a solely proprietary product. Figure 3-3 provides additional details on this challenge.

Table 3-3. Barriers and Challenges for Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive 

Systems

(● = one vote)

Modeling, Simulation, and Verification

High Priority  Lack of a human model, complete with cognition, learning, and adaptation, that can be 

integrated into systems analysis and synthesis and inform design ●●●●●●●●●●●

Medium Priority

 Time consuming and expensive verification and validation as compared to development

●●●●●

 Incomplete and improperly captured system specifications ●●●

 Lack of integrated models with common semantic domains ●●●

Lower Priority

 Lack of multiscale and multiphysics modeling and simulation ●●

 Developing a CPS “theory of everything” that networks every person and physical thing into one 

massive, intelligent system ●●

 Difficult maintenance of heterogeneous generation gap due to systems integration evolution ●

 Uncertainty about the ability to model CPS mesh capability, casting doubt on the facility of the 

creation of predictable systems 

 Difficulty in combining and/or integrating differing time- and event-based system 

representations 

 Lack of probabilistic certification standards 

 Lack of model integration across domains and industries

 Variable interaction of different system models(e.g., integrating models of people and machines 

could produce different results than models of combined networks of people and machines)

Communication Systems

Medium Priority  Integration of wireless technology (e.g., 3G, 4G, NFC, Wifi, ZigBee, RFID) to meet the mobility 

needs of CPS ●●●
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Table 3-3. Barriers and Challenges for Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive 

Systems

(● = one vote)

Lower Priority  Decreased wireless capability from lost bandwidth packets 

 Lack of communication protocols for hybrid networks regarding data and controls 

Human-Machine Interface

Lower Priority

 Lack of a well-defined benchmark problem that can help balance resources for performance 

and robustness and break down resources into a well-defined structure between humans and 

automation ●●

 Material limitations of current sensor and actuator technologies ●

 Inability of current sensors of CPS applications to efficiently integrate a human-in-the-loop

 Increasing need for human-machine interfaces for CPS beyond the iPad

 Inability of machines to understand, rather than just sense, human intent

 Lack of automation to address scale and complexity increases and determination of whether to 

do so top down or bottom up

 Difficulty preventing undesirable emergent behaviors 

Data to Knowledge

Medium Priority  Lack of methods for data processing (data to knowledge) ●●●●

Lower Priority

 Limited data processing technologies (e.g., data center, data mining, cloud 

computing)complicates obtaining knowledge from a large amount of data 

 Gaps in ability for processing sensory data into actionable information in real time

 Poor analytics (e.g., machine learning, adaptable systems, awareness)

Design

Medium Priority  Lack of a unified, multidisciplinary design framework and standard software and hardware 

●●●●●

Lower Priority

 Difficulty in determining and maintaining balance between open standards and proprietary 

standards ●●

 Establishing correct interface rules and formalisms for design of sub modules through system 

integration

 Practice of incremental design limits the potential of CPS 

 Limited new high-level programming paradigms that are platform-specific (i.e., multicore GPU)

 Lack of research in interactive artificial intelligence

Metrics for Performance and Uncertainty

High Priority

 Unsatisfactory uncertainty characterization and quantification ●●●●●●●●●●

 Lack of publicly available data sets and test beds to conduct sufficient testing and data 

collection for benchmarking purposes ●●●●●●●●●●

 Insufficient metrics, or feedback loops, for highly networked CPS ●●●●●●●●●

 Convincing developers, regulators, users, and other CPS stakeholders to relinquish the idea of 

systems being 100% certifiable, except in extreme cases ●●●●●●●●●
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 17

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Table 3-3. Barriers and Challenges for Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive 

Systems

(● = one vote)

Security and Privacy

High Priority

 Limited system security against attacks ●●●●●●●

 Maintaining privacy, including information security, information integrity, and intent 

management ●●●●●●

Medium Priority

 Limitations of measuring the quality of security ●●●●●

 Instilling trust in data collection, what the CPS is allowed to do, and whether or not the CPS will 

respond to human users properly ●●●●

Low Priority  Maintaining privacy even after a breach ●
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Measurement Challenges

•How to measure situation awareness and interaction of 

the system with/by humans and of the human with/by the 

system

•How to measure the engagement of humans with the 

system

•Developing an approach to modeling human behavior that 

includes a general cognitive model that is substantiated 

and adapted through interaction

Performance Targets

•Robot assistant that interacts as a person would (at a testtype scale)

•Robot assistant that is effective in aiding people with 

different levels of abilities

•Decreased number of car crashes due to more human-like 

machines

Potential Applications

•Manufacturing fabrication and assembly, maintenance, 

and other functions

•Automotive and other transportation 'smart' systems

•Smart buildings and civil infrastructure

•Surgical and other robotic-assisted medical procedures

•Search and rescue

•Energy exploration and production (mines, oil platforms)

Benefits/Impacts

•Natural, seamless human interactions with CPS

•Manage risks and safety as systems move toward mixedinitiative modes of operation

•Accelerate and ease the adoption of systems that provide 

performance benefits

•Human acceptance of, comfort with, and confidence in 

interacting with machines and systems

•Increased career longevity, quality of life, and 

independence for humans

Major Tasks 

•Develop a state-of-art survey and taxonomy of human 

behavior

•Architect a container for physical and cognitive models of 

human with respect to machine

•Develop proper abstractions and structures for model, 

including representations

•Create a pilot or challenge to develop and validate models 

and components, along the lines of the DARPA grand 

challenge

Key Milestones 

•Year 1: Establish an ongoing effort to conduct periodic 

assessments of progress, such as challenges of increasing 

level of difficulty with periodic reductions in constraints; a 

robot assistant could be a possible challenge target (will 

continue past 1 year).

Figure 3-1. Natural, Seamless Interaction Between Humans

and CPS

A better model of human strengths and weaknesses and corresponding machine strengths and weaknesses is 

needed to create a more natural, seamless interaction between humans and CPS. Models that are adaptive,

implementable at varying degrees of sophistication, and compelling to humans will help manage risks and safety as 

systems move toward mixed-initiative modes of operation and will make humans more comfortable with and 

accepting of interactions with machines. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry: Provide industrial engineers and device developers and manufacturers

Academia: Provide expertise on human behavior

Government: Provide expertise on human behavior (e.g., National Science Foundation human/social behavior)

Marketers, cognitive psychologists: Provide insight into human/social behavior
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 19

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Measurement Challenges

•Determining level of service

•Determining productivity enhancement (i.e., do cyberphysical systems improve or degrade task completion)

•Conducting marginal risk assessment

•Uncertainties of experimental design (e.g., Bayesian 

Theory, correct test beds)

•Quantifying the “brittleness” of the system (i.e., gain 

margin)

Performance Targets

•An evolutionary system that can adapt to changing 

naturalistic inputs

•A tool to compose disparate systems with quantified 

uncertainty

•Reproducible results (e.g., tool should eat its own 

garbage)

•Use uncertainty characterization and quantification to 

identify potential risks in a mixed-mode system and 

provide feedback to design

Potential Applications

•All systems where the highest level of certainty is critical 

(medical, national security and defense, energy 

infrastructure, food safety, etc.) and/or where systems are 

likely to be exposed to duress or impactors on stability 

and reliability

Benefits/Impacts

•Better understanding of the potential risks to system 

operation

•Feedback to design

•Enable graceful degradation

•Create safe, robust systems

•Reduce the risk of catastrophic error

•Have the ability to estimate risk

•Enable complex systems to evolve

Major Tasks 

•Develop a modular, composable approach to uncertainty 

quantification

•Conduct a baseline study to understand performance and 

range of inputs

Key Milestones 

•Year 1: Complete an evaluation of a mixed-mode system 

(could take 1 to 3 years).

•Year 2-3: Baseline a system in development or in place.

•Year 4+: Have the ability to model composable systems.

Figure 3-2. Uncertainty Characterization and Quantification 

System uncertainty must be characterized and quantified to understand the implications of the inputs and their 

variability on system operation. Characterization and quantification of uncertainty will ensure that systems are 

robust and resilient, enabling them to maintain the same quality and level of service even under duress. It is also a 

key enabler for modeling and capturing the human element, and leads to a greater understanding of the 

boundaries for stability. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Academia: Develop uncertainty characterization and quantification modeling

Industry: Develop test bed, data sets, and scenarios

Academic Public-Private Partnerships: Establish a framework for public-private partnerships, including a funding arrangement, 

and help establish a test bed
20 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Measurement Challenges

•Defining minimum standards of performance and 

enforcing compliance with standard infrastructure

•Gauging stakeholder buy-in

Performance Targets

•Commercial success for stakeholders 

•Stakeholder acceptance of the standards and 

infrastructure (e.g., 5 states are running it)

•A solid product that meets the minimum standard (as 

simple as possible)

Potential Applications

•None identified

Benefits/Impacts

•Smoother, faster roll-out of quality technology 

•Drives down costs for manufacturers and consumers

•Improves economic competitiveness and creates jobs

•Faster and more efficient development processes are 

better for the environment

Major Tasks 

•Conduct a gap analysis to determine what is missing, who 

the stakeholders are, and where the opportunities are

•Create basic infrastructure and make it affordable for 

people to use

•Compartmentalize different CPS systems for different 

industries and build separate standard foundations for 

them

Key Milestones

•Year 1: Conduct gap analysis to determine the “state of practice,” 

identifying issues, opportunities, and stakeholders, both 

domestically and internationally.

•Year 2-3: Implement a test pilot project to develop a standard 

system in one industry to create industry buy-in; encourage 

government to participate as investor and legislator to test the 

development of a public-private partnership.

•Use pilot project as proof-of-concept for a draft of standard 

design guidelines and an infrastructure model.

•Develop a roadmap to drive the test pilot project and 

development of the draft guidelines and infrastructure model.

•Year 4: Continue revising standard design guidelines and 

infrastructure model, and use as the basis for other industries to 

develop tailored versions.

Figure 3-3. Interconnected and Interoperable Shared Development 

Infrastructure

The current market does not have governance or business models in place to motivate the development of networked, 

cooperating, human-interactive systems. Developers must assume the risk of sharing proprietary information with competitors 

and the liability of integrating their systems with external systems to ensure high levels of performance and functionality. 

Building an infrastructure foundation that is interoperable, contains open source and proprietary information in balance, and 

operates under the same standards will provide a protected starting point from which interoperable issues are minimized and 

system development could be profitable.

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry: Agree to implement test pilot project and buy into idea

Trade Groups: Assist development of standards and provide a collaborative environment for industries

Standards Developers: Work with industry and trade groups directly and use pilot test project as a guide

Government: Support for programs, regulation and legislation during pilot project
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 21

Workshop Summary Report

4.0 Engineering across the 

Digital-Physical Divide

Successfully integrating cyber and physical system components will require an 

understanding of the multi-scale, multi-physics models and abstractions that will be needed 

to enable co-design of software, communications, and interacting physical subsystems. 

Other questions to be considered include how to enable consideration of a wide range of 

design trade-offs across digital and physical systems; and the engineering foundations and 

tools needed to support CPS throughout the entire system lifecycle. 

4.1 VISION

CPS have hardware, software, and communications systems that are deeply embedded in 

and interacting with physical components and the physical environment. While these 

aspects of CPS do work together today, significant development efforts are required to 

realize the next generation of secure, synchronized, and seamless CPS. Table 4-1 

summarizes the future engineering vision for CPS and provides other concepts that should 

be taken into consideration as the future of CPS is strategically considered.

Table 4-1. Vision for Engineering Across the Digital-Physical Divide

Overarching Vision

By 2020, the CPS community will develop multi-scale, multi-physics models and abstractions that create engineering 

foundations and tools for future CPS that 1) can dramatically reduce risk in design and operations; 2) allow for scalable 

and composable co-design; 3) have systematic methods for integration; 4) are secure systems; and 5) have predictive, 

diagnostic, corrective, and adaptive characteristics.

Visionary Concepts for Engineering Across the Digital-Physical Divide

 Hierarchical co-design 

 Costs that are scalable (and predictable)

 Secure interoperability

 Seamlessly move between levels of abstraction technology

 Integration as a first principle of design and development

 Universal languages 

 Standards for processes, equipment, and evaluation of performance

 Tools for verifiable software at scale

 Risk is quantified (at all design stages), articulated to non-experts, and standardized
22 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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4.2 TRANSFORMATIVE IDEAS

Identifying a transformative idea set for CPS could be the impetus to help drive the 

development of the hardware, software, and communications systems necessary for robust 

digital-physical systems. One simple but far-reaching idea is the establishment of the 

‘science of CPS,’ thereby creating a systematic basis of knowledge covering the general 

scientific principles behind CPS. A comprehensive review of CPS basics and expounding 

the fundamentals will establish a critical foundation on which all future CPS systems could 

be reliably and methodically built. Table 4-2 provides examples of other radical ideas, 

functionalities, and applications that could be realized with next-generation CPS.

Table 4-2. Transformative Ideas for Engineering Across the

Digital-Physical Divide

Design and Development

 Create capability for automated design refinements 

 Develop assisted design with tools to co-emulate components in system and provide on-demand knowledge

 Create general design software that would enhance transparency from smallest component to largest

 Develop collaboration and co-design tool with domain translator

 Establish hierarchical co-design

 Mitigate risks through redundancy; create diffuse and ubiquitous risk; recognize greater cyber-security risk as opposed 

to physical security risk

 Enable open source for all CPS software

 Establish marginally (not over) engineered systems; minimize system complexity 

 Allow vendors to differentiate their business within an expansive standards ecosystem

Usability and Function

 Improve automated modeling 

 Create interactive feedback systems

- Individual and global community linked

- Self-diagnosing

- Self-alerting/repairing/adaptable, configurable self-healing

- Adaptive, self-monitoring systems with single integrated monitor (redundant, reliable)

 Create learning databases

 Build an advanced problem visualization tool

 Individualize physical analysis and coaching 

 Functionality to automatically synthesize analog from digital 

Applications 

 Advance autonomous passenger (civilian) aircraft

 Develop citizen power generation control 

 Expand demand response in the power industry with CPS

 Create a CPSNET that sends energy like the internet sends information

 Crowd source (virtual) utility companies
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 23

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Table 4-2. Transformative Ideas for Engineering Across the

Digital-Physical Divide

 Link human brain directly to CPS for computing power

 Harness high computing systems for modeling and simulation 

 Incorporate quantum computing-massively parallel processing 

 Upgrade to very high bandwidth communications to allow computing in Cloud environments 

4.3 CHALLENGES

While CPS has become part of contemporary applications from healthcare to the power grid, 

major improvements in functionality and the ability to navigate complex situations will require 

significant advances and developments in CPS technology. A number of challenges and 

barriers exist before these next-generation capabilities can be realized. The major 

challenges identified are outlined in Table 4-3. From these, a set of priority challenges was 

selected; these are summarized below and in more detail in Figures 4-1 to 4-3.

Abstraction Infrastructure to Bridge Digital and Physical System Components: For the 

last several years, computers and networks have pushed ahead into monitoring and 

controlling a variety of physical processes, typically using feedback loops. Issues arise from 

the safety and reliability requirements of the physical components which are qualitatively 

different from those of the computing components. Because physical components are 

qualitatively different from object-oriented software components, standard abstractions 

based on method calls and threads fail when used in CPS.1 Figure 4-1 provides additional 

details on this challenge.

Testing and Certification of Compositional Systems: The desire for autonomously 

operating systems requires dependable and certified CPS systems. The challenge is to 

create compositional certification, which consists of certification of components (physical 

and cyber) separately without re-certifying them after the system is integrated.2 Currently, 

system architecture, design, integration, and design space exploration are only robust 

enough to allow for building systems first, then testing them and finally certifying them (see 

Figure 4-2). Certification of complex systems is extremely difficult and hard to bind in the 

preliminary design phase. 

Cost-effective, Secure System Design, Analysis and Construction: Lengthy design to 

product cycle and numerous iterations and interactions result in long and costly system 

development. Major issues are conflicting requirements and methods causing unintended 

consequences, the need to co-design tools and framework, lack of scaling ability, and lack 

of design standards for interoperability. New simulation tools are needed to fully model CPS 

systems as they collect, analyze, process, and react to the many types of sensing, 

communications, and other data types that will be captured during service operations. The 

 

1

http://chess.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/427/Lee_CyberPhysical_ISORC.pdf

2

http://precise.seas.upenn.edu/events/iccps11/_doc/CPS-Executive-Summary.pdf

2

http://precise.seas.upenn.edu/events/iccps11/_doc/CPS-Executive-Summary.pdf
24 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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challenge is to create robust, relevant real-world simulations that accurately re-create 

scenarios that CPS systems will experience before they placed in service.

Table 4-3. Barriers and Challenges for Engineering Across the

Digital-Physical Divide

(● = one vote)

Design, Development, and Construction

High Priority

 Lack of simulation tools ●●●●●●

 “Unknown unknowns” or ability to map out variables comprehensively ●●●●●

 Poor CPS operation or failure with conventional abstractions ●●●●●

 Inability to design, analyze, build CPS cost effectively ●●●●

Medium Priority  Ineffective operation outside the design-space (e.g., robust and reliable) ●●●

 Reconciling design paradigms or multi-paradigm modeling ●

Lower Priority

 Inability to scale methodology ●

 Inability to quantify states of the cyber system

 Instability of systems under cyber variations

 Unpredictable interferences in para-functional properties, which are further complicated in CPS

 Lack of filtering of poor data using adaptive filtering 

Interoperability and System Integration

High Priority  Insufficient ability to enable all devices to communicate in a universal language ●●●●

Medium Priority  Limited integrated infrastructure ●

 Limited measures of system security ●

Standardization, Certification, and Verification

High Priority

 Lack of methods for certifying heterogeneous systems ●●●●●●●●●

 Insufficient testing and validation capabilities ●●●●

 Lack of standards development ●●●

Lower Priority  Gaps in data coordination
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 25

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Lack of metrics on the abstractions and necessary metrics 

to guide the choice of abstraction

•Making useful properties available

•Limited metrics on execution, bit-error rates (BER), mode 

switching

•Limited mode-dependent metrics (execution mode) –

metrics determined by the mode of analysis

Performance Targets

•Abstraction framework and infrastructure to span a 

multitude of domains

Potential Applications

•Wide variety of CPS across multiple domains

Benefits/Impacts

•More effective design space exploration

•Enabling of compositionality – even across nonfunctional 

space

•Reuse of information within various abstractions

•Reconciliation of different design paradigms

•More confidence in integration (given framework)

•Greater openness of systems

•Ability for system evaluation

Major Tasks 

•Conduct inventory study across existing systems; 

understand bottlenecks; conduct iterations and transpose 

abstractions to different domains (fundamentals, 

commonalities, etc.)

•Develop highly configured abstractions, transformations 

between abstractions (with little loss of information), 

preserving semantics

•Implement flexible framework – (collaborative) open; 

highly evolvable (technologies and methodologies)

Key Milestones 

•Year 1: Complete inventories of existing abstractions

•Year 2: Development of abstraction framework

•Year 3: Test and adopt framework and infrastructure in 

practical system development

Figure 4-1. Abstraction Infrastructure to Bridge Digital and

Physical System Components 

There is a need to develop the correct abstractions for CPS design, simulation, control, build, maintenance, etc., 

that span the digital and physical divide. An approach is to design corresponding syntax and semantics that are 

executable and enable a framework to span various domains (physics, analog, digital, information, communication, 

computation, controls, etc.) and related abstractions and refinements.

Stakeholders and Roles 

Academia: Develop abstractions

Research Labs: Develop abstractions, test

Industry: Test/implement frameworks
26 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Measurement Challenges

•Lack of methods for certification compositional systems 

•Difficulty of certifying complex systems with multiple 

cyber and physical components working together

•Limits of existing design paradigms (systems must be built 

individually

Performance Targets

•Methods for testing and certification of cyber and physical 

components working together in heterogeneous systems

•Design systems to incorporate compositionality and 

facilitate later certification and test processes

Potential Applications

•Large, heterogeneous, integrated CPS in a variety of 

domains and applications (e.g., smart grid, FAA NextGen 

system)

Benefits/Impacts

•Improves customer confidence in the system and 

encourages market adoption

•Early adoption of testing reduces overall development and 

deployment cycle time

•Mitigates need to re-certify components after system is 

integrated

Major Tasks 

•Develop preliminary methods for compositional 

certification, that is performance-based as opposed to 

early process-based

•Develop and incorporate models and simulation into 

certification and test methods

•Establish a voluntary certification organization for CPS

Key Milestones 

•Year 2-3: Implementation of LCA in new construction; 

achieve provable, correct model testing tools within next 

two years 

•Year 4: Updated metrics adopted by ANSI

•Year 5 and beyond: Affordable testbeds (cost reduced by 

some order in the next five years)

Figure 4-2. Testing and Certification of Compositional Systems

There is a need for autonomously operating systems to be dependable and certified. In the context of CPS, system 

level testing, validation and certification is a significant challenge. Compositional certification (i.e., certification of 

physical and cyber components) is challenging, especially after integration. Today systems are built first, then 

tested and certified. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry: Industry

Academia: Academic and industrial researchers for provably correct model development

Government: Support research/test beds
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 27

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Developing new abstraction layers, standards, and common 

languages for exchange and translation across domains

•Data representation changes cause data loss

•Representing the envelope and operation limits and 

environmental factors

•Lack of simulation tools and models for system design and 

analysis

•Lack of a universal language for interoperability at design stage

Performance Targets

•Reduce design, analyze, and build time or cost by a factor of 10

•Increase number of publications of CPS by a factor of 100

•Demonstrate a more efficient and lower cost systems (energy, 

transportation)

Potential Applications

•Aerospace, automotive, and other transportation systems

•Multiple domains in manufacturing and the energy sector

•Civil and buildings infrastructure

•Industries that benefit from co-design strategies

Benefits/Impacts

•Reduces time to market

•Increases safety and security

•Maximizes simplicity and manages complexity

•Reduces both development and recurring costs

•Reduce complexity in interfacing systems

•Increases competitiveness

•Facilitates thinking at the system level

•Enables co-design which is critical for CPS with extreme demands 

•Cost-weight, size, performance advances for CPS

•Informs the standards and certification processes

Major Tasks 

•Develop formalisms and abstractions of science for CPS

•Develop engineering methods and tools for co-design

•Stakeholder collaboration to develop consensus standards for 

interoperability,including defintionof metrics and how they 

should be measured

•Break down barriers across fields and domains

•Establish incentives for cross-disciplinary projects

•Develop simulation tools that capture knowledge

•Develop innovative concepts, e.g., knowledge wizard

•Develop scalable and adaptable tools for future CPS 

Key Milestones 

•Year 1

•Formal metrics published

•Demonstrate engineering co-design for CPS

•Demonstrate tools and framework

•Define metrics and needed standards to measure CPS 

performance, stability

•Increase CPS communication, conferences, publication, and 

community

•Define case studies for co-design of complex CPS

Figure 4-3. Cost Effective and Secure System Design, Analysis, and 

Construction

The lengthy design to product cycle and numerous iterations and interactions required result in long and costly 

system development. Development issues include conflicting requirements and methods causing unintended 

consequences, the need to co-design tools and framework, the lack of simulations and models for design, and the 

inability to scale designs and analysis. Integration of disparate designs also requires standards for interoperability. A 

major challenge is how to stand up a universal language that anticipates the requirements of designers. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry: Guide standards, develop tools, demonstrate and productize

Academia: Work on theories, simulations

Government: Enable/facilitate standards, support demonstrations at scales; support research programs; issue/update 

regulation based on new technology

Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 29

Workshop Summary Report

5.0 Architecture and 

Platforms for CyberPhysical Systems

Innovative architecture and platforms are needed to support highly complex and interconnected cyber-physical systems. A key consideration is how to enable development and 

application of comprehensive architectural frameworks that include both the physical and 

cyber elements of CPS. Other issues to be considered include what new platforms will be

needed to effectively extract actionable information from vast amounts of raw data; and how 

to provide a robust timing and systems framework to support the real-time control and 

synchronization requirements of complex, networked, engineered physical systems. 

Advances will also be needed in sensing, control, and wireless communications to enable 

optimized performance, diagnostics, and prognostics.

5.1 VISION

Architecture and platforms are key components of CPS. The key properties envisioned for 

architecture and platforms in the years beyond 2020 include plug and play capability, selfhealing, interoperability, and adaptability (i.e., an architecture that can adapt in response to 

changing and often unpredictable situations). In addition, it is expected that future CPS 

architecture and platforms are robust, verifiable and secure, as well as cost-effective. 

Table 5-1 provides more detail on the future vision for CPS architecture and platforms.

Table 5-1. Vision for Architecture and Platforms for CPS

Overarching Vision

A system that integrates Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) at multiple abstraction levels to 

exhibit self-healing, adaptability, and learning, while still being applicable across multiple domains. This system is 

expected to be secure, scalable, reliable, flexible, meaningful, and interactive; with open interfaces for interconnection, 

while still allowing proprietary components to be utilized. Systematic heterogeneity will be achieved via a notion of 

abstract semantics (as opposed to a grand unifying modeling language). Essential components will include multi-form and 

multi-resolution models of time, discrete and continuous dynamics, multi-modeling (functionality vs. architecture), 

composability and decomposition, and parameterization (i.e., reusability).
30 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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5.2 TRANSFORMATIVE IDEAS

A number of transformative ideas will be needed to achieve this vision of architecture and 

platforms for the year 2020 and beyond. Table 5-2 shows examples of radical ideas in the 

development of CPS architecture and platforms. As shown in the table below, a number of 

ideas address a rethinking of the fundamental architecture design, for example, potentially 

informed by biological system design in the future. Other ideas focus on system interaction 

with the external world (i.e., input-output), in terms of communications, as well as selfadaption to external stimuli.

Table 5-2. Transformative Ideas for Architecture and Platforms for CPS

Architecture and Platforms 

 Create an application-specific open-source platform that the CPS community can collaboratively populate and 

strengthen

 Utilize a platform for interoperability, allowing for automatic negotiation of function and capabilities

 Develop a layered architecture that is not subverted by issues of time, (e.g., a three layered architecture 

encompassing communications, utility, and value added)

 Apply understanding of biological or social systems to promote radical CPS architecture and platforms design

 Utilize abstractions that encapsulate multiple aspects (e.g., functional, behavioral, timing, quality of service, quality of 

control) and multiple layers (e.g., application, network, and physical layers)

 Utilize plug and play components that produce predictable results, even for unanticipated interactions

 Employ automatic adapting and reconfiguring architecture in response to failed/aging/drifting components

 Deploy architecture containing multi-level “safety nets” and security defenses

 Develop architectures that treat every component, product, and person as an active “node” on a network, for 

consumers and producers of information

Intelligence and Cognition

 Incorporate understanding of human intent into input (in real-time)

 Develop components with extreme intelligence, allowing components to act as individuals in a human organizations 

(e.g., reporting status or skills to a component “manager”)

 Utilize natural language to serve as the medium connecting heterogeneous data, linking perception and cognition 

(knowledge) to action

 Employ intelligent system designs that are able to decide in real-time when to violate certain constraints in order to 

protect other constraints

 Utilize distributed, swarm intelligence to achieve large-scale distributed complex models that combine physical and 

machine learning models

Unique Functionalities and Applications

 Enable multi-dimensional applications to comprehensively interact with our four dimensional world, unleashing 

dramatic innovation

 Share middleware across CPS domains

 Develop systems where communications bandwidth and processing power are not limiting factors for the vast majority 

of applications

 Deploy embedded technologies that can evolve with integration 
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 31

Workshop Summary Report

Table 5-2. Transformative Ideas for Architecture and Platforms for CPS

 Provide the capability for automatic, synergistic systems integration with measureable security

Sensing and Data Collection

 Deploy systems that make sense of data, with the ability to process large amounts of data to make intelligent run-time 

decisions, optimizing control and performance

 Utilize self-powered, multi-level sensing devices

 Incorporate 99.999+% wireless penetration in networked CPS

5.3 CHALLENGES

A number of barriers and challenges currently impede progress in the development of CPS 

architecture and platforms, and are summarized in Table 5-3. From these, a set of priority 

challenges were selected; these are briefly described below and detailed in Figures 5-1 to 5-

5.

Scientific-based Metrics for Security, Privacy, Safety, Resilience: It is technically 

challenging to identify scientifically-based definitions of measurement for the broad concepts 

of security, privacy, safety, and resilience. And if such definitions are identified, how will they 

be utilized and reasoned with? For example, if the idea of privacy is examined, under what 

conditions or system attributes is privacy considered violated? These properties could be 

represented by a variety of models or combinations of models, which can be chosen based 

on their compositionality and ability to describe the constellation of attributes that are being 

certified (see Figure 5-1). Specific applications include medical device systems 

(professional, in the loop), smart buildings and vehicles, democratized power (i.e., allowing 

users to set and follow policy), and manufacturing or consumption networks (e.g., food).

Systematic Structured Design and Process Integration: CPS need a structured design 

method that systematically relates signals and symbols, both for inter-process and 

interpersonal communications across domains. Potential application areas include smart 

manufacturing, cross-domain applications (e.g., modular, fielded robotics), shared 

infrastructure data across industries, and the development of a reliable electric grid 

increasingly dependent on renewable energy. Figure 5-2 provides additional information 

details about this challenge.

Correctness of CPS in the Presence of Environmental Uncertainty: Ensuring the 

correctness of CPS systems in an ever-complex, uncertain environment is an increasingly 

challenging problem. Environmental uncertainty factors include potential adversaries and 

unanticipated human interactions. CPS would not only need to be able to respond to these 

environmental factors, but systems would also need to exhibit a degree of reconfigurability 

and adaptability in order to independently redefine correctness as conditions change. 

Specific applications that would benefit the most from addressing this challenge include 

autonomous vehicles, aircraft, control systems, the smart grid, and other complex CPS. 

Figure 5-3 provides additional details about this challenge.
32 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Trustworthy, Holistic Infrastructure for the Evaluation of CPS: Currently, there is a lack 

of infrastructure for use in the evaluation of traditionally closed systems (see Figure 5-4). 

This type of evaluation infrastructure can be developed by leveraging the strength of 

individual evaluation methods and tools already in use in other systems into an integrated 

approach, enabling a deeper understanding of the behavior of both the individual 

components and the larger systems. For example, measurement data can be integrated to 

drive modeling processes, which in turn can drive simulations and other forms of analysis. 

The results of simulations and other forms of analysis can then be used to drive optimized 

measurement processes. Specific applications could include CPS components and systems 

in medicine, the smart grid, smart manufacturing, and transportation. Overcoming this 

barrier would also enable the compositionality of different evaluation methods. 

Managing the Role of Time in Architecture Design: Managing, in a characterized way,

issues related to time in architecture is a complex yet critical issue for real-time CPS 

systems. The issues include time synchronization, developing a unified, common view of our 

sense of time, time measurement, unifying the time-scale, defining a reference time, and 

how to communicate these time characteristics to application and/or sensors. These issues 

could be addressed through the development of a multi-layered architecture, consisting of at 

least three layers: a communication layer, utility layer, and function/application layer. The 

communication layer would address all aspects of time management and time 

synchronization. The utility layer unifies the time scale and time scheduling across all the 

layers. And the application layer facilitates for applications how to define, manage and 

coordinate their timing requirements, definitions, acceptance and services. Overcoming 

these challenges will have a great impact on any data-driven, real-time applications and 

modeling/simulation functions and responses. Figure 5-5 provides additional details about 

this challenge.

Table 5-3. Barriers and Challenges for Architecture and Platforms for CPS

(● = one vote)

Infrastructure for Design, Test, and Validation

High Priority

 Lack of scientific-based metrics for security, privacy, safety, resilience ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

 Lack of a trustworthy, holistic infrastructure for the evaluation of CPS ●●●●●●●●●●●●●

 Inability to ensure the correctness of CPS in the presence of uncertainty in the environment 

●●●●●●●●●●●●●

– Accommodating nondeterministic behavior of humans in human-in-the-loop control systems

– Developing automatic generation of interface rules for use in distributed systems

 Managing the role of time in architecture design (i.e., lack of models that make semantic 

distinctions between discrete events and continuous processes) ●●●●●●●●●●

 Lack of systematic structured design and process integration for CPS (i.e., determining a method 

to systematically relate signals to symbols) ●●●●●●●●●

 Inability to continuously measure and ensure CPS only provides desired functionality ●●●●●●●

Medium Priority

 Lack of a secure and trust-worthy virtual infrastructure for remote testing, evaluation, and 

development of systems including medical devices and automotive ●●●●●

 Inability to determine the optimal trade-off between assessment metrics (e.g., safety, security, 

cost) ●●●●
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 33

Workshop Summary Report

Table 5-3. Barriers and Challenges for Architecture and Platforms for CPS

(● = one vote)

– Lack of support tools to understand the consequences of behavior, engineering requirements, 

and other impacts on performance and cost 

 Inability to develop predictive models for CPS architecture behavior ●●●

Lower Priority

 Systems lack automatic correctness and/or behavior bounding ●

 Lack of distributed learning algorithms ●

 Difficulty achieving global optimality using game theory rather than rules ●

 Inability to scale architecture for safety and security and still mass-marketing low-cost consumer 

products and components ●

 Lack of robust description and languages for applications and value-added services ●

 Lack of a common architecture and metrics and definitions for architecture 

 Lack of standards maturation to support end-to-end integration

Data Collection and Use

Medium Priority

 Lack of self-powering or extremely low-power wireless sensors to enable functionality for the 

duration of the sensor lifetime ●●●●●

 Lack of low-power sensors that are easily calibrated and stay calibrated long-term ●●●●

Lower Priority

 Inability of the user or the CPS to measure learning and improvements resulting from CPS 

adaptability ●

 Inadequate sensing and monitoring in extreme (harsh) conditions
34 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Measurement Challenges

•Labeling/differentiation of system states based on 

individual/combined properties (i.e., what are the 

classifiers/predicates?)

•Integrating diverse models into a combined 

reasoning/evaluation framework

•Understanding the complexity of multi-model checking, 

reachability, completeness, etc., and automating the process 

Performance Targets

•Ability to evaluate physical, temporal, computational, etc. 

attributes of failures in a consistent and standardized manner

•Communicate those details and their implications effectively to 

each other, to decision makers and the larger populace

•Measurement and evaluation regimes can be applied to existing 

systems (possibly after change, or post hoc)

•Policy decisions (e.g., investment, design, use) can be 

scientifically evaluated based on measured properties (e.g., 

bridge usage, load policy, conformance to policy, monitoring)

Potential Applications

•Multiple and diverse CPS across domains and applications

Benefits/Impacts

•Greater reliability with fewer, lower-impact, less widespread 

consequences of failures

•More informed, effective and understandable policy and 

engineering decisions and outcomes (e.g., allowing medical 

practitioners to better explain decisions to patients)

•Monetary, intellectual, temporal, efficiency of systems and their 

productivity/lifecycles

•More fundamental basis for understanding and dealing with 

complexity

Major Tasks 

•Mine existing engineering practice for examples of the property 

in question being violated and/or exhaustively verified or 

disproven 

•Develop suitable models for expressing each property rigorously 

(rigorous, but comprehensible)

•Examine diverse combination of properties and evaluate which 

combinations of models remain suitable (can they interface well? 

e.g. time)

•Develop theories of compositional reasoning over suitable 

combinations of models 

•Validate compositional reasoning over models by applying them 

to real (systems-of-) systems and evaluate system complexity and 

reasoning/model complexity. Models will be used to define what 

to measure in the system, compare measured values and their 

consequences to modeled behavioral expectations. 

Key Milestones 

•Year 1

•Define what attributes of privacy, security, safety, and resilience 

are fundamental.

•Year 2-3

•Extract attributes of real systems of non-trivial complexity and 

impact

•Model & evaluate space of possible experiments and exercises 

to explore property evaluation capabilities (i.e., what can be 

used for engineering practice?)

•Year 4+

•Conduct and evaluate experiments (long-running consortium 

based) in relevant domains (power, aviation, automotive).

•Scientific review and refinement of approaches, methods, 

models, etc (ongoing agency level activity) for evaluating 

security, privacy, safety, and resilience

Figure 5-1. Scientific-Based Metrics for Security, Privacy, Safety, 

and Resilience

Different properties are measured over distinct, but not necessarily disjoint features of each system: Can common representations that 

acknowledge such nuance be found? How can complexity be evaluated based on them? For a property, what defines the violation of that 

property? What conditions or system attributes are implicit in the violation of this property? Potential applications include medical device 

systems (professional, in the loop), smart buildings and vehicles, democratized power (where users both set and follow policy), and 

manufacturing/consumption networks (i.e., global hunger issues).

Stakeholders and Roles 

Government Agencies (e.g., NIST, NSF, DOD): Anchor and organize the scientific review and refinement of models, methods, and approaches 

for evaluating privacy, security, safety, and resilience

Technical Organizations: Provide engineering and technical expertise

Research Organizations (including academia, industry, government): Provide engineering and technical expertise

Standards bodies and review boards: Developing appropriate standards

Public: Education and consent
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 35

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Difficulty measuring the behavior of a system that 

contains signal interpretation, planning and control 

components

•Integrating human component into the measurement

•Incorporating stochastic models in measurements of 

behavior.

Performance Targets

•Demonstrations of quick CPS implementation from 

generic plug-and-play components 

Potential Applications

•Smart manufacturing, cross-domain applications such as 

fielded robotics

Benefits/Impacts

•Increases modularity

•Reduces costs of sensors and actuators

•Reduces development time and time-to-market

•Improves understanding of CPS complexity measurements

Major Tasks 

•Define a universal description language for sensors and 

actuators that informa a system of their semantics

•Develop stochastic methods and tools for task 

decomposition that supports generic/modular system 

understanding 

•Develop structural design for CPS (e.g. semiconductors) 

Key Milestones 

•Year 1-2

•Principles for CPS structured design established (inspired 

by Dijkstra’s structured programming).

•Year 3

•Prototype tools for learning, creating, and understanding 

the structured CPS design is developed.

•Year 4+

•Plug and play sensors are developed (Year 4)

•Demonstrations of quick CPS implementation from 

generic plug and play components (sensors and 

actuators) (Year 5).

Figure 5-2. Systematic Structured Design and Process Integration 

CPS is in need of a structured design method that systematically relates signals and symbols, both for inter-process 

and interpersonal communications across domains. Potential application areas include smart manufacturing, 

cross-domain applications (e.g., modular, fielded robotics), shared infrastructure data across industries, and the 

development of a reliable electric grid increasingly dependent on renewable energy. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Academic Researchers: develop design theory

Industry: test cases and data collection

Industry: develop novel sensors and actuators

Government: community building

Academic Institutions: develop a structured, universal CPS design 
36 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Measurement Challenges

•How to define complete correctness

•How to characterize uncertainty

Performance Targets

•Increased uptime

•Design to correctness development time

•A known percentage of behavioral coverage (correctness) 

•A known percentage of unknown coverage

Potential Applications

•Autonomous vehicles

•Aircraft

•Control systems

•Smart grid

•Other complex CPS

Benefits/Impacts

•Improves safety

•Increases robustness

•Reduces design time

•Reduces enhancement time

•Reduces cost

Major Tasks 

•Define correctness as much as possible (i.e., formal 

description, simulations/models, testing)

•Develop robust run-time bounds checking (to detect when 

the system exceeds the original specifications of safe and 

secure operation)

•Develop adaptation/self-learning with incremental 

verification of changes through its lifetime. 

Key Milestones 

•Year 1

•Development of a proof of concept in modeling/virtual 

world; encompassing correctness, bounds checking, and 

adaptation.

•Year 2-3

•Pilot on a large-scale application.

•Year 4+

•An architecture reference design and standard is 

developed.

Figure 5-3. Correctness of CPS in the Presence of

Environmental Uncertainty

Correctness of CPS systems must be ensured at all times, even in the presence of complexity, dynamic uncertainty 

in the environment, adversaries, or unanticipated human interactions. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry (e.g., aircraft, automotive manufacturers): technology and application development

Academia: research collaboration

International Standards (e.g., IEEE, IEC): increased adoption

Government (e.g., DOE, DOD, DOT, NIST, DARPA): application development
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 37

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Impact of domain – specific requirements on interface 

design

•Traditionally separated communities (e.g. dspace)

•How to ensure non-intransient evaluation given the 

safety-critical nature of many CPS systems

Performance Targets

•Demonstration of a generic CPS built using plug and play 

sensors and actuators 

Potential Applications

•Aerospace and other transportation

•Medicine

•Smart grid

•Manufacturing

Benefits/Impacts

•Supports the lifecycle of CPS development

•Reduces development costs

•Supports open innovation

Major Tasks 

•Integrate different evaluation methods (i.e. formal 

analysis and verification, simulation, and measurement);

•Develop an effective user interface for specific 

components (including behavior and fidelity, safety, and 

security properties), while also specifying context;

•Seamlessly integrate different tools that support 

compositionality and prediction.

Key Milestones 

•Year 1-2

•Integration of different evaluation methods.

•Year 3

•Closed-loop integration of different methods for going 

from data to model to analysis and back to measurement 

and simulation.

•Year 4+

•Compositionality of components within and across 

different methods

•Support behavior prediction across different contexts

Figure 5-4. Trustworthy, Holistic Infrastructure for CPS Evaluation 

Currently, there is a lack of infrastructure for the evaluation of traditionally closed systems. This evaluation 

infrastructure can be developed by leveraging the strength of evaluation methods and tools used in other systems 

including the networking community or in vehicle systems. Overcoming this barrier would also enable the 

compositionality of different evaluation methods. Potential applications include CPS components and systems in 

medicine, the smart grid, smart manufacturing, and transportation. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Academic researchers: develop the evaluation infrastructure

Industry: resources, collaboration

Government: guidance, program support
38 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Measurement Challenges

•Maintaining a common sense of time

•Time and task synchronization and management 

•Managing characterization of the sensors

•Accommodating the models and measuring the impact of 

environment

Performance Targets

•Check for architecture extendability

•Use of multiple types of test beds

Potential Applications

•Multiple systems and applications across domains where 

timing is a critical factor

Benefits/Impacts

•Ensures time correctness 

•Makes it simpler for applications to run in a time-correct 

manner 

•Increases application expanda-bility, lowers cost, and 

eases deployment (the result of the dissociation of time 

management activities and applications logic)

Major Tasks 

•Define time characterizations for sensors and applications

•Develop a common language and protocol for specifying 

time requirements (i.e., real time, time constrained)

Key Milestones 

•Year 1-2

•Develop reference architecture.

•Year 3+

•Develop common standards, languages and protocols for 

specifying time requirements (i.e., real time, time 

constrained).

Figure 5-5. Managing the Role of Time in Architecture Design 

Facilitating time management (synchronization, scale, communication, scheduling) for distributed CPS applications 

(design, rapid prototyping, production) is an extremely challenging task. To address this challenge, a layered 

architecture based on functionality (communication layer, utility layer, and application layer) is to be designed, 

prototyped, and produced. This layered architecture will employ time management among/across all layers. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Industry: develop or provide the definition of problems, test cases, benchmarking

Government and Industry: develop reference architecture or reference framework and standards to develop standards, 

languages, and protocols

Academia: develop language, tools, protocols, algorithmic intellectual property to support other activities
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 39

Workshop Summary Report

6.0 Education, Workforce 

Training, and

Technology Transition

Education and training provides a solid foundation for supporting continuing innovations and 

advanced in CPS. Key considerations include what will be needed to ensure that higher 

education provides a new generation of scientists and engineers qualified to develop, 

design, and implement an array of cyber-physical systems; and how to create a skilled 

workforce capable of operating and maintaining the highly complex CPS of the future. Once 

new CPS technology is developed, mechanisms must also be in place to help smooth the 

transition to suppliers and end-users.

6.1 VISION

An established field of study focused on CPS is not currently available in educational 

institutions. CPS encompasses a number of disciplines including computer science and 

various engineering specializations. A key visionary element of the future of education for

CPS is the availability of recognized educational programs that offer the fundamentals of 

CPS though a multi-disciplinary curriculum. Similarly, future workforce training and 

technology transition of CPS require the availability of professional certification and other 

practice oriented programs. Table 6-1 summarizes the future vision for this area.

Table 6-1. Vision for Education, Workforce Training, and Technology Transition

Overarching Vision

A cross-disciplinary CPS curriculum is part of the university system to teach the foundations of CPS, is recognized as an 

undergraduate and post-graduate field of study, and offers opportunities for transition into the workplace.

Education

An academic CPS environment is available that is interdisciplinary and dynamic, provides laboratory experience, and 

covers human behavior as well as the business side of CPS. 

Workforce Training and Technology Transition

Technology transfer takes place seamlessly, reliably, and painlessly. Potential opportunities include the availability of 

internships with industry, professional certifications, and other practice–oriented programs.
40 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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6.2 TRANSFORMATIVE IDEAS

A number of transformative ideas that could improve or revolutionize CPS education and 

technology transition were identified. For example, CPS is a field that is continuously 

evolving both in terms of technology and information so it may be necessary to develop 

continuous education programs in addition to a structured degree. Table 6-2 summarizes 

the transformative ideas proposed for this area.

Table 6-2. Transformative Ideas for Future CPS Education, Workforce Training, and 

Technology Transition 

Education and Workforce Training

 Create an industry-recognized certification for CPS professionals (degree-less education) 

 Use elementary and secondary resource center programs for K-12 exposure of projects related to CPS

 Develop education programs that are continuous, not just four to six years

 Develop a virtual CPS computer world that allows for experiments, exercises, and games

 De-emphasize MBAs and reward Masters’ programs in CPS

 Attract engineers at an early stage in their education and get them involved to instill a passion for life-long learning and 

commitment 

 Improve community college policies and programs to help educate a CPS workforce

 Create a summer camp for CPS students with real-life games in real-life environments

 Develop a global standard for CPS education

Technology Transition

 Create an environment where individuals can develop collaborative “apps” for smart sectors, such as smart grid and 

smart buildings

 Have universities forgo all claims to intellectual property and, instead, offer new inventions as a social good

6.3 CHALLENGES

A number of challenges were identified that impede advancements in CPS education, 

workforce training, and technology transition (see Table 6-3). From these a set of priority 

challenges was selected for further discussion. These are described below and in more 

detail in Figures 6-1 to 6.3. 

Multi-department CPS Degrees and Resources: There is a need for a CPS university 

program that integrates multiple disciplines (see Figure 6-1). Historically, university systems 

have been divided into traditional disciplines (computer science, electrical engineering, etc.). 

The challenge is to incorporate a multi-disciplinary CPS program within the existing 

university structure. The creation of a new prototype program would require participation 

from the National Academy of Engineering and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and 

Technology (ABET), as well as organization supporting research. The resulting program 

would provide a more formal teaching and training approach in CPS, and also reduce 
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 41

Workshop Summary Report

training cycles. Textbooks and courses (including virtual) are also needed to support new 

curricula as well as training.

Dynamic Training and Certification in CPS: CPS is a dynamic field that requires 

continuous education and retraining, and could be suited for certification and accreditation 

programs. A joint industrial and academic certification committee could produce a prototype 

test certification and accreditation for CPS training (see Figure 6-2). This initiative could 

result in the development of an educated workforce with fundamental backgrounds in CPS.

Value Proposition of CPS: CPS research is often described in terms that are too 

theoretical or include jargon that is not readily recognized. Simplified and enhanced

descriptions of research goals, benefits, and risks are needed. These collaboration activities 

could facilitate quicker and less expensive industry adoption of research as well as

improved understanding of the benefits and applications of CPS research. Figure 6-3

provides additional details about this challenge.

Table 6-3. Barriers and Challenges for Education, Workforce Training, and 

Technology Transition 

(● = one vote)

Education

High Priority

 Lack of a CPS degree that cuts across multiple disciplines, hindered by stove piped nature of 

university structure ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

– Need to define what aspects should be included in the CPS curriculum

– Graduate programs may accommodate new, integrative courses more easily than 

undergraduate programs, which are saturated in terms of courses 

 Lack of mechanisms for continuous retraining, incentives, and funds to facilitate radical CPS 

innovations in universities, schools, industry, and government●●●●●●

 Insufficient training of instructors and teachers ●●●●●

Medium Priority

 Need a reward/incentive structure that reinforces narrow disciplines●

 Need to define the educational outcomes and objectives for a CPS-based curriculum●

 Erroneous public perception of potentials and risks of inaction●

 Deficient vested interests in the current educational approach/structure●

Lower Priority

 Inability of various groups in different domains (e.g., IEEE, ASME) to agree on standards 

 Lack of project-based activities that are sufficiently adequate in terms of reinforcing CPS

 Obtaining the right mix of faculty and industry mentors from different backgrounds

 False boundaries in cross-discipline skill sets from degree structures such as bachelors, 

masters, and post-doctorate degrees 

 Inability to handle shared or constrained resources (e.g., bandwidth, computer cycles, sensing, 

power, sampling)

 Difficulty managing a myriad of sub-disciplines in which specializations and fellowships can be 

obtained
42 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

Workshop Summary Report

Table 6-3. Barriers and Challenges for Education, Workforce Training, and 

Technology Transition 

(● = one vote)

Workforce Training

Medium Priority

 Training future CPS engineers ●●●●

 Need for rigorous tools that can effectively train workforce using a flexible delivery method while 

maintaining quality ●●● 

 Lack of funding and programs in community colleges to train students in CPS●●●

 Lack of company incentives for certain amount of continuing education credits in CPS ●●

Lower Priority  Continuing education certificates in CPS are lacking

Technology Transition

High Priority

 Difficult to understand the substance of research, evidence for investment, target audience, and 

time to market, due to overly theoretical research descriptions ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

– Lack of model and simulation design, and cross-section design semantics between 

architects, automation engineers, and civil engineers. All parties should understand each 

other.

 Lack of regulations focused on implementation versus probabilities of outcomes ●●●●●●●●●

 Lack of governance or business models needed to motivate development, which creates 

liabilities ●●●●●●●●●

 Incentivizing companies to make security of CPS a priority ●●●●●●●●●●

 Lack of communications among CPS collaborators with different conceptual frameworks 

●●●●●●●

 Lack of proper incentives and funds to facilitate radical innovation at universities ●●●●

Medium Priority

 Resistance and fear of management, collaborators, and software vendors to changing a 

currently inadequate business model ●●●●●

 Inability of business to accept risk of building/adopting CPS; conveying vision and impact of 

CPS value proposition ●●●●

 Making CPS an open source to capture CPS technology, methods, and tools in shared 

modeling and simulation systems●●

 Lack of open standards, which should be included in undergraduate training

Lower Priority

 Lack of a common definition of CPS ●●

 Estimating the economical and societal costs and benefits ●●

 Inability to put into effect a global architecture (e.g., and open-ended architecture guidelines) ●

 Encouraging the public to understand risk (e.g., self-driving cars) ●

 Legal and intellectual property implications of connecting into large non-isolated systems

 Finding early adopters without incentives

 Determining who is accountable when integrated human-machine systems cause harm 

 Elevated costs for technology transition

 Limited number of people with skills to do validation and verification of CPS 

 Creating societal acceptance of the human-machine interface, ensuring that machine 

invasiveness is at a comfortable level for humans
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 43

Workshop Summary Report

Challenges

•Establishing a designated degree, certificate, minor, cross-listed 

courses, and a full-fledged program

•Assessing the competence of students graduating from the 

program in CPS

•Assessing if course offerings satisfy CPS learning objectives and 

outcomes

Performance Targets

•National Academy of Engineering report in one year

•Adoption of CPS programs in 25% of U.S. colleges (top 200)

•First bachelor’s degrees in CPS issued in 2017

•Preparing/adoption of textbooks (1-3 years)

•Number of CPS courses, virtual or regular

Potential Applications

•Mechanical Engineering: Next generation aerospace, transport

•Electrical and computer engineering: Smart grid

•Robotics: Autonomous vehicles

•Mechanical/chemical engineering: Automation

•Civil: Structural/ Smart buildings

•Biomedical: Medical networks

Benefits/Impacts

•Provides a more formal method/approach for teaching 

undergraduate students in CPS rather than the ad-hoc approach 

used now 

•Saves five years of training in industry, after graduation

•Supports future workforce training for industry

Major Tasks 

•Develop report (National Academy of Engineering/NAE)

•Obtain certification from the Accreditation Board for Engineering 

and Technology (ABET) for CPS-based curriculum/program

•Obtain buy-in at every level in the university (faculty, board of 

regents/trustees) and from local industry

• Establish faculty hiring incentives/opportunities in CPS programs

•Provide co-ops which will become an integral part of the CPS 

program

•Identify common backgrounds needs in math, science, etc.

•Develop textbooks

•Create CPS virtual training material 

•Present the foundations of CPS through existing material –

security for CPS, networking for CPS

Key Milestones 

•1 year: Creation of government-supported CPS educational 

centers with industry cooperation; public report by NAE that 

identify opportunities and needs for university ; virtual bridging 

courses

•2 years: CPS-related textbooks

•3 years: Prototype program in several select universities

•5 years: Deployment of program across most universities

•Annual summer workshops tuned to education on CPS

Figure 6-1. Multi-Department CPS Degrees and Resources 

Incorporating a cross-disciplinary CPS degree program into current university structure and administration is 

impeded by the historic separation of disciplines and departments. Evolving and revolutionary approaches will be 

needed to overcome this challenge. CPS is not a classic discipline, so few textbooks and curriculums exist to cover 

the topic, and incentives are low to develop these. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Government Agencies: provide motivation, support for education centers

Industry: partner in education and recruiting; identify CPS benchmarks; form alliances with educational initiatives

High-level University Administration: negotiate high-level politics in college, provide resource allocation

Universities: implement recruiting through hiring and outreach; incentivize CPS curriculum, interdepartmental programs

Students: customers, product of education system

Primary/secondary Education: provide exposure early on to facilitate success in higher education
44 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Challenges

•Creating a balance of training in sub-disciplines needed for 

a given CPS domain

•Lack of accreditation and/or CPS degrees

•Evolving advances across CPS fields requires retraining 

and keeping up with new technology

•Ability to measure the value of the CPS approach versus 

traditional solving of problems

Performance Targets

•Small start-up businesses addressing CPS training issues

•Students with CPS accreditations, degrees, or certificates,

•Requirements/specifications that rely on CPS capabilities

Potential Applications

•University degrees and education tracks

•Training in all CPS fields

Benefits/Impacts

•Educated workforce with fundamental background and 

CPS capabilities

•Ability of society to efficiently and safely implement their 

visions of complex systems

Major Tasks 

•Support prototype test certification/accreditation 

programs between industry/academia for CPS training

•Create a municipal scale test site

•Robust internships supported through a national program 

in CPS 

Key Milestones 

•Certification committee with agencies to outline within 

two years , led by government agencies and universities)

•Build a business case for a municipal scale test site and 

advocate to investors – six months for business case, oneyear plan, two years co-funding, three years break ground

Figure 6-2. Dynamic Training and Certification in CPS

CPS is a dynamic field (similar to the medical and other fields) with new methods, tools, techniques, and theories

continuously emerging. It is also a concept that does not easily fit within traditional stovepipes but crosses multiple 

disciplines. Dynamic training programs are needed to provide the skilled workforce needed.

Stakeholders and Roles 

Government: enable and support programs; specify CPS capabilities/attributes in procurements; help in coordinating 

educational programs and requirements for continuous certification

Industry: provide specifications for training and certification

Universities: conduct training programs
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 45

Workshop Summary Report

Measurement Challenges

•Creating technical performance measures for CPS 

research

•Quantifying benefits for investors and customers

•Typical metrics, such as number of papers, patents, and 

research awards, may not resonate with stakeholders

Performance Targets

•Baseline of today’s performance and quantification of 

current awareness of CPS research

•Understanding the quantified improvement that are 

desired or possible

Potential Applications

•Industry adoption of CPS to either generate products 

using CPS, work to mature or transition CPS technologies, 

or new start-ups using CPS

Benefits/Impacts

•Quicker, greater, and less expensive industry adoption of 

research

•Better (technical and non-technical) industry and other 

stakeholder understanding of what CPS research delivers

Major Tasks 

•Encourage self evaluation criteria such as in Heilmeier 

questions to simply describe research, benefits, risks and 

why it is being done; embed as part of the research 

response and include timelines

•Place higher value on tangible industry participation 

versus letters

•Form technical committee under IEEE or ACM to address 

the value proposition

•Create technology transition awards

Key Milestones 

•Number of industry attendees at CPS meetings greater 

than some number

•Number of patents from research increases above some 

threshold 

•Increasing number of articles on CPS research outside of 

traditional journals

•Number of times citations are pulled from Google Scholar 

or IEEE Explore

Figure 6-3. Value Proposition of CPS Research 

Research is often described in terms that are highly theoretical and with jargon that is not readily understood or 

recognized. It is hard to explain the value and substance of the research to the layman or decision-makers, i.e., why 

it is worthy of investment, who will benefit, how it can be applied, and the time to market. 

Stakeholders and Roles 

Government: support for research

Universities: conduct research

Industry: support and conduct research

Industry start ups: recipients of future research 

Students: conduct research in engineering and non-engineering disciplines
46 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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7.0 Application-Specific 

Challenges

While progress is being made every day, advancements to cyber-physical systems continue 

to be challenged by a variety of technical (i.e., scientific and engineering), institutional, and 

societal issues. These range from technical system-level issues such as interoperability, 

infrastructure, and reliability, to institutional challenges such as building a 21st century CPS 

workforce and better business models and value propositions for next generation systems.. 

Many challenges to CPS advancement remain throughout the stages of technology 

development, from basic science to applied R&D to technology deployment. The workshop 

identified challenges that are relevant to advancing technologies in the technical topics 

considered, and these are described in the main chapters of this report. However, 

challenges also exist that are unique to the application area and/or industrial sector, as 

outlined below. Prior to the workshop a situation analysis was conducted to identify the state 

of technology in some of the key application areas, as well as the major challenges, which 

are summarized in the next section (EI CPS 2012). These are not intended to be allinclusive of the CPS challenges in these sectors, but representative of some of the major 

issues.

6.4 SMART MANUFACTURING

Some of the main challenges associated with the implementation of CPS in include 

affordability, network integration, and the interoperability of engineering systems.

Most companies have a difficult time justifying risky, expensive, and uncertain investments 

for smart manufacturing across the company and factory level. Changes to the structure, 

organization, and culture of manufacturing occur slowly, which hinders CPS technology 

integration. Pre-digital age control systems are infrequently replaced because they are still 

serviceable. Retrofitting these existing plants with CPS is difficult and expensive. 

Incorporating CPS in new plant designs is more feasible. The lack of a standard industry 

approach to production management results in customized software or use of a manual 

approach. There is also a need for a unifying theory of non-homogeneous control and 

communication systems.

6.5 INFRASTRUCTURE FOR SMART GRID AND UTILITIES 

A grand challenge for CPS is the design and deployment of an energy system infrastructure 

that is able to provide blackout free electricity generation and distribution, is flexible enough 

to allow heterogeneous energy supply to or withdrawal from the grid, and is impervious to 

accidental or intentional manipulations. Integration of CPS engineering and technology to 

the existing electric grid and other utility systems is a challenge. The increased system 

complexity poses technical challenges that must be considered as the system is operated in 
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 47

Workshop Summary Report

ways that were not intended when the infrastructure was originally built. As technologies and 

systems are incorporated, security remains a paramount concern to lower system 

vulnerability and protect stakeholder data. In addition, to operate the infrastructure with CPS 

technologies, a qualified, innovative, and skilled workforce is needed. 

Also affecting CPS integration are numerous non-technical business and policy challenges 

including policies on the regulation and implementation of smart grid technologies, 

standards development, and the responsibility of maintaining, operating, and repairing the 

equipment for power generation and grid connectivity.

6.6 SMART BUILDINGS AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Issues of building ownership (i.e., building owner, manager, or occupants) challenge CPS 

integration with questions such as who pays initial system cost and who collects the benefits 

over time. A lack of collaboration between the subsectors of the building industry slows new 

technology adoption and can prevent new buildings from achieving energy, economic, and 

environmental performance targets.

Uncertainty in future policies and a near term focus for buildings increase the risk in 

adoption of advanced building technologies such as CPS. Funds for bridge repair, 

maintenance, and replacement shrink as costs of construction continue to rise. Although 

structural health monitoring systems could help determine when a bridge needs 

maintenance and possibly extend its useful life, these systems would require funding 

themselves as well as additional maintenance and replacement costs.

Integration of CPS both within the building and with external entities, such as the electrical 

grid, will require stakeholder cooperation to achieve true interoperability. As in all sectors, 

maintaining security will be a critical challenge to overcome. 

6.7 SMART TRANSPORTATION AND MOBILITY

Federal, state, and local government budgets have limited resources for advanced 

transportation improvements and to integrate new CPS into the existing infrastructure. 

Although certification of these systems is critical, several issues remain, such as what 

should be certified, who is responsible for certification, and how will the systems be certified. 

New policies and legislation will be required to launch and sustain new technologies.

Representing human behavior in the design, development, and operation of CPS in 

autonomous vehicles is a challenge. Incorporating human-in-the-loop considerations is 

critical to safety, dependability, and predictability. There is currently limited understanding of 

how driver behavior will be affected by adaptive traffic control CPS. In addition, it is difficult 

to account for the stochastic effects of the human driver in a mixed traffic environment (i.e., 

human and autonomous vehicle drivers) such as that found in traffic control CPS.

Increasing integration calls for security measures that are not physical, but more logical 

while still ensuring there will be no security compromise. As cyber physical systems become 

more complex and interactions between components increases, safety and security will 

continue to be of paramount importance.
48 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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6.8 SMART HEALTHCARE 

Challenges exist in the overall cyber-physical infrastructure (e.g., hardware, connectivity, 

software development and communications), specialized processes at the intersection of 

control and sensing, sensor fusion and decision making, security, and the compositionality 

of cyber-physical systems. Proprietary medical devices in general were not designed for 

interoperation with other medical devices or computational systems, necessitating 

advancements in networking and distributed communication within cyber-physical 

architectures. Interoperability and closed loop systems appears to be the key for success. 

System security will be critical as communication of individual patient data is communicated 

over CPS networks. In addition, validating data acquired from patients using new CPS 

technologies against existing gold standard data acquisition methods will be a challenge. 

CPS technologies will also need to be designed to operate with minimal patient training or 

cooperation.

8.0 References

EI CPS 2012. Cyber-physical Systems – Situation Analysis of Current Trends, Technologies, and 

Challenges, Energetics Incorporated, March 2012. http://events.energetics.com/NISTCPSWorkshop/pdfs/CPS_Situation_Analysis.pdf

NITRD 2009. High-Confidence Medical Devices: Cyber-Physical Systems for 21st Century Health 

Care, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program, 

February 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/cyber/NITRD%20-%20HighConfidence%20Medical%20Devices.pdf

PCAST 2012. Report to the President on Capturing Domestic Competitive Advantage in Advanced 

Manufacturing, Executive Office of the President, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and 

Technology (PCAST), July 2012. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast_amp_steering_committee_report_f

inal_july_27_2012.pdf

PCAST 2011. Ensuring American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing, Executive Office of the 

President, PCAST, June 2011. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcastadvanced-manufacturing-june2011.pdf

PCAST 2010. Designing a Digital Future: Designing a Digital Future: Federally Funded Research and 

Development in Networking and Information Technology, Executive Office of the President, PCAST, 

December 2010. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-nitrd-report2010.pdf

EU 2012. The ARTEMIS Embedded Computing Systems Initiative, October 2012. 

http://www.artemis-ju.eu/ 
Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems 49

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Participants

Architecture and Platforms Breakout

Yiannis Aloimonos 

University of Maryland, College Park

Donny Helm 

Oncor Electric Delivery

Patrick Beeson

Traclabs, Inc.

Al Jones 

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Stephen Craven

University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

Edward Lee 

University of California, Berkeley

Jim Davis

University of California, Los Angeles

Amin Maghareh 

Purdue University

Sameh Elsharkawy

NiLogix, Inc.

Zhuoxiong Sun 

Purdue University

Tom Fuhrman

General Motors

David Vasko 

Rockwell Automation

Christopher Gill 

Washington University in St. Louis

Mumu Xu 

California Institute of Technology

Julian Goldman 

Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard 

Medical School

Linh Thi Xuan Phan 

University of Pennsylvania

Chetan Gupta 

HP Labs

Hongwei Zhang 

Wayne State University

Education, Workforce Training, And Technology Transition Breakout

Jay Bayne 

Milwaukee Institute

Keith Marzullo

National Science Foundation

Tanya Brewer 

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Umit Ozguner 

Ohio State University

Mike Coop 

ThinkSmartGrid

Radha Poovendran 

University of Washington

David Corman 

Boeing

Shankar Sastry 

University of California, Berkeley

Kent Donohue

UL LLC

Krishna Venkatasubramanian 

University of Pennsylvania

Yaser P. Fallah

West Virginia University

Alexander Wyglinski

Worcester Polytechnic Institute
50 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Education, Workforce Training, And Technology Transition Breakout

Aydin Farajidavar

Georgia Institute of Technology

Susan Ying

Boeing

Helen Gill

National Science Foundation

Justyna Zander

Harvard University, Simulated Way

David Knowles

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Engineering Across the Digital-Physical Divide Breakout

Clare Allocca

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Lee Pike

Galois, Inc.

Justin Bradley

University of Michigan

Jonathan Sprinkle

University of Arizona

Brent Brunell

General Electric

Vijay Srinivasan

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Jason Burt

Bonneville Power Administration

Mark Stolorow

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Bill Goodwine

University of Notre Dame

Ceeman Vellaithurai

Washington State University

Mary Ann Maher

SoftMEMS

Justyna Zander

Harvard University

Pieter Mosterman

MathWorks

Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive Systems Breakout

Carl Andersen

Federal Highway Administration

Taylor Lochrane

Federal Highway Administration

John Banting

Cooper Power Systems

Eamonn McCormick

Alvarez and Marsal

Aaron Becker

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Necmiye Ozay

California Institute of Technology

Aaron Bobick

Georgia Institute of Technology

Taskin Padir

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

George Chiu

National Science Foundation

Wenjing Rao

University of Illinois at Chicago

Isaac Cohen

United Technologies Corporation

Burt Theurer

General Electric Global Research
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Networked, Cooperating, Human-Interactive Systems Breakout

Howard Harary

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Al Wavering

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Naira Hovakimyan

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Philip Wilsey

University of Cincinnati

David Johnson

Boston Scientific

Feng Zhao

Microsoft Research-Asia

Heath LeBlanc

Vanderbilt University

Yi Zhao

Futurewei

Reliable, Safe, and Secure Systems Breakout

Luiz Rust Carmo

Inmetro Brazil

Bill Sanders

University of Illinois

David Chilin

University of California, Los Angeles

Chaitanya Sankavaram

University of Connecticut

Joe D'Ambrosio

General Motors

A. Prasad Sistla

University of Illinois at Chicago

Bruce Douglass

IBM

Gaurav Srivastava

University at Buffalo

Kathleen Fisher

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Anthony Star

Illinois Commerce Commission

Christopher Geyer

iRobot Corporation

Shyam Sunder

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Maysam Ghovanloo

Georgia Institute of Technology

James Swanson

University of Cincinnati

Hongwei Liao

University of Michigan

Janos Sztipanovits

Vanderbilt University

Suzanne Lightman

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Shahan Yang

University of Maryland

Brian Murray

United Technologies Research Center

Lei Zhao

Purdue University

Sai Prathyusha Peddi

The Ohio State University

Hao Zheng

University of South Florida

Leonard Radtke

Medtronic
52 Foundations for Innovation in Cyber-Physical Systems

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Acronyms/Abbreviations

ABET Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology

CPS Cyber-physical systems

DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

DOD U.S. Department of Defense

DOE U.S. Department of Energy

DOT U.S. Department of Transportation

FAA Federal Aviation Administration

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IT information technology

LCA Life cycle analysis

MBA master of business administration

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology

NSF National Science Foundation

SRR Safety, resilience, and reliability 

V&V verification and validation