CSR: Small: Network-Level Design of Cyber-Physical Systems

信息物理系统（CPS）是由计算算法和物理组件的无缝集成而建立并依赖于此的工程系统。CPS承诺通过在能源、医疗保健和交通等领域应用机器智能和自主性，彻底改变我们处理全球社会规模问题的方式。CPS承诺的一个关键要素取决于实现迄今为止断开的计算机系统的有效联网。然而，CPS的网络化也带来了新的设计挑战。机器对机器通信具有数据丢失等固有的不确定性，但CPS必须在严格的实时性、可靠性、安全性、效率和性能保证下运行。当与复杂性的快速增长相结合时，这种网络系统的计算和通信方面被单独设计的传统方法，以一种特殊的方式，阻碍了实现系统范围的正确性保证，并留下了大量未开发的优化潜力。该项目的长期目标是通过研究新颖、系统化和最终自动化的设计方法来缩小这一差距，这些设计方法可以跨计算和通信边界对CPS进行网络范围的优化和验证。预计这将推动未来智能和自主网络物理系统的设计，使全新类别的智能应用出现。任何严格的设计过程的基础都是具有良好定义的抽象和模型的合理形式化，这些抽象和模型允许用户或自动化工具在构建系统之前推断预期的行为。虽然已经研究了网络和物理模型的集成，但缺乏统一计算和通信的可比理论。一个关键问题是，在网络和分布式CPS中存在固有的不确定性、适应性和反应性的情况下，如何为整体优化实现提供特定于应用程序的实时行为和服务质量概念。本项目旨在通过探索网络物理系统的网络级计算和通信协同设计科学的正式基础来回答这些问题。具体创新包括：系统规范的计算和通信的正式模型，包括相关的分析和综合算法；快速而准确的性能模型，用于快速、早期的验证，包括相关的模型生成、综合和设计空间探索能力。这些创新在具体的网络物理系统案例研究的背景下进行评估，包括虚拟和物理测试平台。研究与教育议程相结合，旨在建立网络和嵌入式计算的整体视图，包括在模型和工具开发时公开发布，以及为广大受众开发在线教材。

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered systems that are built from, and depend upon, the seamless integration of computational algorithms and physical components. CPS promise to revolutionize how we approach global societal-scale problems, through application of machine intelligence and autonomy in areas such as energy, healthcare, and transportation. A key element of the CPS promise depends on achieving effective networking of hitherto disconnected computer systems. However, the networked aspect of CPS also poses new design challenges. Machine-to-machine communication comes with inherent uncertainties, such as data losses, yet CPS have to perform under tight real-time, reliability, safety, efficiency and performance guarantees. When combined with rapidly growing increases in complexity, traditional approaches in which computation and communication aspects of such networked systems are designed separately, and in an ad-hoc manner, hinder achieving system-wide correctness guarantees and leave a large optimization potential untapped. The long-term goal of this project is to close this gap by investigating novel, systematic, and ultimately automated design approaches that enable network-wide optimization and validation of CPS across computation and communication boundaries. This is expected to advance how future intelligent and autonomous cyber-physical systems are designed, enabling whole new classes of smart applications to emerge.The foundation for any rigorous design process is a sound formalization with well-defined abstractions and models that allow users or automated tools to reason about intended behavior before a system is built. While the integration of cyber and physical models has been studied, comparable theories for a unification of computation and communication are lacking. A key question is how application-specific notions of real-time behavior and quality-of-service can be provided for overall optimized implementations in the presence of inherent uncertainty, adaptivity and reactivity in networked and distributed CPS. This project aims to answer such questions by exploring formal foundations for a network-level computation and communication co-design science for cyber-physical systems. Specific innovations include: formal models of computation and communication for system specification, including associated analysis and synthesis algorithms; fast yet accurate performance models for rapid, early validation, including associated model generation, synthesis and design space exploration capabilities. These innovations are evaluated in the context of specific cyber-physical system case studies, including virtual and physical testbeds. Research is combined with an educational agenda aimed at establishing a holistic view of networking and embedded computing, including public release of models and tools as they are developed, as well as development of online teaching materials for a broad audience.