Guest editorial for special issue on cyber-physical systems

CYBER-PHYSICAL system is a system of collaborating computational elements to control physical entities. The coordination and the tight link between computational, virtual and physical resources in cyber-physical system will have a pervasive effect on our everyday life. The development of cyber-physical system will create new opportunities for the introduction of services that will enhance the quality of life of the society as a whole. Research advances in cyber-physical systems promise to transform our world with systems that will far exceed those of today in terms of: effectiveness, adaptability, autonomicity, energy efficiency, precision, reliability, safety, usability, scalability, stability and user-centric applicability. Moreover, recently the sensor web concept came into foreground, aiming at combining distributed sensing with the ubiquitous connectivity and accessibility of the web, therefore facilitating the close interaction of digital world with physical world. The technical challenges of cyber-physical systems are significant, and of high research and practical importance, mainly stemming from the fact that traditionally different groups of scientists deal with this setting without much interaction, using disjoint sets of techniques. Towards merging the cyber and physical world, well-defined analytical models, methodologies and experimental validations are required in order to build systems capable of orchestrating heterogeneous components together in a flexible and efficient way. The control systems community has been consistently engaged in the development of theories, tools, and practices for the analysis and the design of cyber-physical systems. The aim of this special issue is to provide a window into the recent developments of the fundamentals and applications of control of cyber-physical systems.