Cyber-physical Systems Perspective Research Articles

Identifying Key Issues in Integration of Autonomous Ships in Container Ports: A Machine-Learning-Based Systematic Literature Review

Background: Autonomous ships have the potential to increase operational efficiency and reduce carbon footprints through technology and innovation. However, there is no comprehensive literature review of all the different types of papers related to autonomous ships, especially with regard to their integration with ports. This paper takes a systematic review approach to extract and summarize the main topics related to autonomous ships in the fields of container shipping and port management. Methods: A machine learning method is used to extract the main topics from more than 2000 journal publications indexed in WoS and Scopus. Results: The research findings highlight key issues related to technology, cybersecurity, data governance, regulations, and legal frameworks, providing a different perspective compared to human manual reviews of papers. Conclusions: Our search results confirm several recommendations. First, from a technological perspective, it is advised to increase support for the research and development of autonomous underwater vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles, establish safety standards, mandate testing of wave model evaluation systems, and promote international standardization. Second, from a cyber–physical systems perspective, efforts should be made to strengthen logistics and supply chains for autonomous ships, establish data governance protocols, enforce strict control over IoT device data, and strengthen cybersecurity measures. Third, from an environmental perspective, measures should be implemented to address the environmental impact of autonomous ships. This can be achieved by promoting international agreements from a global societal standpoint and clarifying the legal framework regarding liability in the event of accidents.

Integrated simulation platform for conventional, connected and automated driving: A design from cyber–physical systems perspective

A comprehensive assessment of connected and automated driving is imperative before its large-scale deployment in reality, which can be economically and effectively implemented via a credible simulation platform. Nonetheless, the key components of traffic dynamics, vehicle modeling, and traffic environment are oversimplified in existing simulators. Current traffic simulators normally simplify the function of connected and autonomous vehicles by proposing incremental improvements to the conventional traffic flow modeling methods, which cannot reflect the characteristics of the realistic connected and autonomous vehicles. On the other hand, typical autonomous vehicle simulators only focus on individual function verification in some specific traffic scenarios, omitting the network-level evaluation by integrating both large-scale traffic networks and vehicle-to-anything (V2X) communication. This paper designs a comprehensive simulation platform for conventional, connected and automated driving from a transportation cyber–physical system perspective, which tightly combines the core components of V2X communication, traffic networks, and autonomous/conventional vehicle model. Specifically, three popular open-source simulators SUMO, Omnet++, and Webots are integrated and connected via the traffic control interface, and the whole simulation platform will be deployed in a Client/Server model. As the demonstration, two typical applications, traffic flow optimization and vehicle eco-driving, are implemented in the simulation platform. The proposed platform provides an ideal and credible testbed to explore the potential social/economic impact of connected and automated driving from the individual level to the large-scale network level.

Smart Energy and power systems modelling: an IoT and Cyber-Physical Systems perspective, in the context of Energy Informatics

Abstract This paper aims at identifying the key role of ”Smart Energy and Power Systems Modelling”, within the context of Energy Informatics. The main objective is to describe how the specific subject of ”Smart Energy and Power Systems Modelling” can give a key contribution within the novel domain of Energy Informatics, by successfully linking and integrating the different disciplines involved. First the paper will present how and where the specific subject of ”Smart Energy and Power Systems Modelling” can position itself within the broad Energy Informatics domain. Afterwards the paper will explain how Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Information and Communication Technologies (IoT), coupled with ”Smart Energy and Power Systems Modelling”, can enhance the Energy Informatics domain. In addition, the main challenges and opportunities for Energy Informatics specialists will be outlined, with regard to the interdisciplinary approach that characterises this field.

A Multiplicative Coordinated Stealthy Attack for Nonlinear Cyber-Physical Systems with Homogeneous Property

Stealthy attacks to cyber-physical systems (CPS) refer to the ones that avoid attack detection mechanisms augmented to the systems typically in the form of anomaly detectors. Various types of stealthy attacks have been reported in the literature. Among the attacks with stealthy property, a recently reported multiplicative coordinated attack is particularly dangerous in that it corrupts sensor and actuator data in a coordinated manner, and it does not require precise system knowledge in order to be stealthy. It must be noted that most of these attacks are applicable to CPS, the physical counterparts of which are of linear dynamics. This could be a limitation since most of the physical dynamic systems that are encountered from CPS perspective are of nonlinear nature. In this work, we present a version of multiplicative coordinated stealthy attack for a class of CPS, the physical counterpart of which possesses nonlinear dynamics. Specifically, for the physical systems with homogeneous property, the attack is constructed and the effect is analyzed. Various simulations are carried out to illustrate the effect of the attack.

Cyber–physical perspective on smart grid design and operation

Emerging computation and communication technologies ubiquitously deployed in smart grids introduce unprecedented opportunities by enabling vigorous development of innovative business models and applications that aim for improving system efficiency, reliability, resiliency, and interoperability. Smart grids are typical cyber–physical systems (CPSs). The heterogeneous and complex nature of smart grids presents significant challenges introduced by the tight coupling of computation, communication, and physical systems. Here, the authors first provide an overview of smart grids from a CPS perspective. Then, the authors discuss the opportunities and challenges in smart grid design and operation. Next, a co-design framework is introduced and used for designing wide-area damping controller as one of many CPS applications that can be abstracted from various power system layers. The authors conclude that developing a theoretical modelling framework is critical for understanding and managing the complexity and interoperability of smart grids.

A Survey on Industrial Internet of Things: A Cyber-Physical Systems Perspective.

The vision of Industry 4.0, otherwise known as the fourth industrial revolution, is the integration of massively deployed smart computing and network technologies in industrial production and manufacturing settings for the purposes of automation, reliability, and control, implicating the development of an Industrial Internet of Things (I-IoT). Specifically, I-IoT is devoted to adopting the Internet of Things (IoT) to enable the interconnection of anything, anywhere, and at anytime in the manufacturing system context to improve the productivity, efficiency, safety and intelligence. As an emerging technology, I-IoT has distinct properties and requirements that distinguish it from consumer IoT, including the unique types of smart devices incorporated, network technologies and quality of service requirements, and strict needs of command and control. To more clearly understand the complexities of I-IoT and its distinct needs, and to present a unified assessment of the technology from a systems perspective, in this paper we comprehensively survey the body of existing research on I-IoT. Particularly, we first present the I-IoT architecture, I-IoT applications (i.e., factory automation (FA) and process automation (PA)) and their characteristics. We then consider existing research efforts from the three key systems aspects of control, networking and computing. Regarding control, we first categorize industrial control systems and then present recent and relevant research efforts. Next, considering networking, we propose a three-dimensional framework to explore the existing research space, and investigate the adoption of some representative networking technologies, including 5G, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, and software defined networking (SDN). Similarly, concerning computing, we again propose a second three-dimensional framework that explores the problem space of computing in I-IoT, and investigate the cloud, edge, and hybrid cloud and edge computing platforms. Finally, we outline particular challenges and future research needs in control, networking, and computing systems, as well as for the adoption of machine learning, in an I-IoT context.

Smart Grids: A Cyber–Physical Systems Perspective

Smart grids are electric networks that employ advanced monitoring, control, and communication technologies to deliver reliable and secure energy supply, enhance operation efficiency for generators and distributors, and provide flexible choices for prosumers. Smart grids are a combination of complex physical network systems and cyber systems that face many technological challenges. In this paper, we will first present an overview of these challenges in the context of cyber–physical systems. We will then outline potential contributions that cyber–physical systems can make to smart grids, as well as the challenges that smart grids present to cyber–physical systems. Finally, implications of current technological advances to smart grids are outlined.

Networking vehicles for safety

A cyber-physical systems perspective on the design of vehicular networking solutions for safer and greener transportation.

Toward autonomous vehicle safety verification from mobile cyber-physical systems perspective

Safety certification of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) require guarantees on AVs' safety at design time. To this effect, this paper proposes modeling abstractions that allow architectural representation of AVs and their surroundings, i.e. representation of different components, and enable safety analysis from such representation without requiring any expertise on formal methods. Toward this direction, AVs are considered as Cyber-Physical Systems with Mobile computing nodes (MCPS), where each node (i.e. an AV) can have intentional (as determined by AVs' controller) and unintentional (e.g., in case of skids) motion characteristics depending on the physical environment (e.g. road condition). The modeling abstractions are used to analyze safety of passengers in an AV that collides with guard rail due to skid along a curved segment on the AZ-83 highway.

A Cyber Physical Systems Perspective on the Real-time and Reliable Dissemination of Information in Intelligent Transportation Systems

Timely and reliable dissemination of traffic-related information to drivers is a key property that intelligent transportation systems (ITS) should support. Numerous impediments stemming due to (a) physical factors, such as mobility and speed of vehicles, density of vehicles, characteristics of the wireless radio channel, and power and bit rate of radio transceivers, and (b) cyber issues, such as MAC layer access point associations and address resolutions (ARP), network layer addressing, routing and handoffs, and transport layer retransmissions lead to unpredictability in the timely and reliable dissemination of information to drivers. This paper presents compelling arguments in favor of new research directions in this area that are based on a cyber-physical systems (CPS) perspective. In particular, this paper makes three contributions. First, it considers a vehicle-centric perspective to survey and study the physics-and cyber-imposed impediments to the timely and reliable dissemination of information. Second, it presents a promising CPS solution to overcome a subset of the impediments discovered. Third, it outlines lessons learned indicating the need for more focused research and realistic testbeds. The evaluations