cps

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are integrations of computation with physical processes. Embedded computers and networks monitor and control physical processes in feedback loops where physical processes affect computations and vice versa. For the last 30 years or so, computers have been increasingly embedded in stand-alone, self-contained products. We are poised, however, for a revolutionary transformation as these embedded computers become networked. We refer to such systems, which blend sensing, actuation, computation, networking, and physical processes as action webs. The transformation is analogous to the enormous increment in the utility of personal computers with the advent of The Web. Just as personal computers changed from word processors to global communications devices and information portals, embedded computers will change from small self-contained boxes to cyber-physical systems, sensing, monitoring and controlling our intrinsically distributed human environment.

The technical challenges are enormous, principally because many of the abstractions we have developed for computing and networking deliberately abstract away essential properties of the physical world. This proposed seedling project will focus on what we believe to be the key enabler for the envisioned revolutionary transformation, namely the technologies and abstractions needed for multi-level model-based design of networked embedded software that tightly engages with physical processes. We will evaluate and elaborate models for distributed software, networking, and distributed control systems for essential properties of time management, robustness, and security, and we will develop prototype solutions.

Sensor webs have emerged as a medium for instrumenting the physical world by embedding low power computing, sensing and communication in the environment. At Berkeley, we have demonstrated sensor webs with hundreds of Rene, Dot, Mica-1, Mica-2, XSM and Telos motes using the TinyOS operating system modules TinyDB and TinySec with personal infra-red (PIR) and other sensors. The capstone of this work in 2005 was the use of a 557 node sensor network for 3 pursuers to track and capture 3 or more evaders, using multi-person game theory and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Data Association (MCMCDA) algorithms. We have also used sensor webs to monitor physical spaces such as factories, SCADA systems for process control, farms, redwood trees and the physical world. While sensor webs can instrument the world, action webs go much further by closing the loop, integrating physical dynamics with the dynamics of software and networks. This conceptual shift of focus away from passive information gathering to an action oriented viewpoint changes the focus to closed loop dynamics and situation awareness for decision makers.

Intellectual Merit: The foundations of computing are built on the premise that the principal task of computers is transformation of data. Yet we know that the technology is capable of far richer interactions the physical world. This project will critically examine the foundations that have been built over the last several decades, specifically focusing on the dynamics of networked embedded software in closed-loop cyber-physical systems.
Broader Impacts: The deliverables that emerge from this project could have enormous economic consequences, by helping to maintain US leadership in a critical technology and helping to shape a long-term research agenda. They will also have an enormous effect on engineering and computer science education. Curricula in these fields evolve remarkably slowly, given the rapidity of technological change, and it may be that a concerted effort to blend computation with engineering disciplines that are more deeply rooted in the physical world is required.

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