Cyber-Physical Systems in Healthcare

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), in simple terms, are physical systems that are integrated deeply with cyber systems and are able to modify the properties in the physical world using the feedback loop from the deployed sensors and other data. CPSs have improved safety, productivity, and efficiency in physical systems in almost all domains. Healthcare is an area where CPSs could make a considerable impact. In the United States, over 90 million Americans live with chronic illnesses, and there would be over 70 million people above the age of 65 by 2030. Continuous health monitoring, automated care, and timely intervention are keys to saving many lives. The principal goal of this chapter is to serve as an introductory guide to understand CPSs for anyone new to it, and to learn the security and privacy issues in CPSs with a focus on healthcare. It introduces CPSs in simple terms, reviews the design and architecture of prevalent CPSs, and goes over existing CPS health monitoring systems and types of medical sensors, implantable devices, and commercial products in use. It then focuses on security threats on CPSs, the techniques to overcome them, Intrusion detection systems, and machine learning techniques to prevent intrusions.