As computers become ever-faster and communication bandwidth ever-cheaper, computing and communication capabilities will be embedded in all types of objects and structures in the physical environment. Applications with enormous societal impact and economic benefit will be created by harnessing these capabilities in time and across space. Such systems that bridge the cyber-world of computing and communications with the physical world are called cyber-physical systems.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are physical and engineered systems whose operations are monitored, coordinated, controlled and integrated by a computing and communication core. This intimate coupling between the cyber and physical will be manifested from the nano-world to large-scale, wide-area systems of systems. And at multiple time-scales. Cyber-physical systems will transform how we interact with the physical world just like the Internet transformed how we interact with one another.