  The notion of Cyber-Physical-Social System (CPSS) is an emerging concept
developed as a result of the need to understand the impact of Cyber-Physical
Systems (CPS) on humans and vice versa. This paradigm shift from CPS to CPSS
was mainly attributed to the increasing use of sensor-enabled smart devices and
the tight link with the users. The concept of CPSS has been around for over a
decade and it has gained increasing attention over the past few years. The
evolution to incorporate human aspects in the CPS research has unlocked a
number of research challenges. Particularly human dynamics brings additional
complexity that is yet to be explored. The exploration to conceptualise the
notion of CPSS has been partially addressed in few scientific literatures.
Although its conceptualisation has always been use-case dependent. Thus, there
is a lack of generic view as most works focus on specific domains. Furthermore,
the systemic core and design principles linking it with the theory of systems
are loose. This work aims at addressing these issues by first exploring and
analysing scientific literature to understand the complete spectrum of CPSS
through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Thereby identifying the
state-of-the-art perspectives on CPSS regarding definitions, underlining
principles and application areas. Subsequently, based on the findings of the
SLR, we propose a domain-independent definition and a meta-model for CPSS,
grounded in the Theory of Systems. Finally, a discussion on feasible future
research directions is presented based on the systemic notion and the proposed
meta-models.
