Interface design in cyber-physical Systems-of-Systems

摘要

A Cyber-Physical System-of-Systems (CPSoS) is a possibly huge information processing and energy transforming system. Its autonomous Constituent Systems (CSs), i.e., computer systems, and optionally physical systems and humans, interact in their common environment to realize often mutually beneficial emergent CPSoS services. Many key challenges in understanding, designing, and engineering such CPSoSs are related to the interactions of CSs. This paper conceptualizes these interactions of CSs, i.e., their interfaces, at three abstraction levels: cyberphysical, Itom, and service. The cyber-physical level concernes message-based interactions in cyber space, and stigmergic interactions in the physical environment. The Itom level involves the description of direct and indirect information transfers. The service level helps to tackle challenges related to the dynamicity and evolution of CPSoSs. The second part of the paper discusses design aspects of Relied Upon Interfaces (RUIs) which are the interfaces the overall emergent CPSoS service relies upon. The conceptualization of interfaces in CPSoSs and the proposed RUI design aspects are intended to simplify the modeling of CPSoSs and to facilitate their deployment with existing Internet-of-Things and cloud technologies.