Three Challenges in Cyber-Physical Systems

The tight coupling of computation, communication and control with physical systems such as actuation of closed-loop medical devices within the human body, peak power minimization by coordination of controllers across large industrial plants, and fast life-critical decision making by autonomous vehicles, present a set of fundamental and unique challenges. Each of these require new approaches at the intersection of multiple scientific, human and systems disciplines. We discuss five such challenges which require creative insights and application of model-based design, control systems, scheduling theory, formal methods, statistical machine learning and domain-specific experimentation. We ask the following questions: (1) An autonomous medical device is implanted to control your heart over a period of 5-7 years. How do you guarantee the software in the device provides safe and effective treatment under all physiological conditions? (2) Electricity prices in the US have summer peaks that are over 32x their average prices and winter peaks that are 86x. How can buildings respond to massive swings in energy prices at fast time scales? (3) While wireless has been successfully used for open-loop monitoring and tracking, how can we operate closed-loop control systems over a network of wireless controllers. Furthermore, how can we ensure robust, optimal and secure control in the presence of node/link failures and topology changes?