ABSTRACT
A Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is considered as one of the hottest computer applications today, while a proper design of such a system preassumes that a number of challenges have to be sufficiently addressed. A CPS is composed by a tight integration of cyber and physical objects, where the term cyber objects refers to any computing hardware/software resources that can achieve computation, communication, and control functions in a discrete, logical, and switched environment. Similarly, the physical entities refer to any natural or human-made systems that are governed by the laws of physics and operate in continuous time. In order to address these challenges, three complementary technologies, namely sensing, computing, and communication have to be proper combined. Critical role to any CPS is the decision-making mechanism, which controls the individual entities/services in order all of them to be orchestrated and operate as a unique system. For this purpose, both the cyber and physical aspects of a CPS have to be appropriately designed, implemented, and customized in order to maximize the potential gains from these platforms.
