Walid M. Taha - Cyber-Physical Systems: A Model-Based Approach

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This book is aimed at anyone who would like to be an inventor or an innovator of cyber-physical systems, that is, machines, manufactured products, methods, or combinations of such things. The goal of such invention or innovation is to fill concrete needs in society. Modern examples of such creations include autonomous and electric vehicles, quadcopters, smartphones, and robots. More than ever before, it is useful to describe such systems as cyber-physical because they combine aspects that have previously been confined within the realm of relatively separate disciplines, and in particular, within computer science and within physical sciences. We believe that, increasingly, a more holistic and unified view of such systems is needed. This book achieves this goal by taking a model-based approach, which allows the reader to develop her mathematical modeling skills in a manner that allows her to combine her knowledge from a diverse range of technical disciplines into the same model. At the same time, we are guided by the fact that different types of activities go into the process of creating and developing such systems, including three that this book is concerned with: learning , teamwork , and design. We start by considering these three points in more detail.

Learning is a lifelong activity that has become more important than ever in todays knowledge economy . Today, there is much more to learn. The very computing and communication technologies that inspire this book are themselves accelerating science and technology, and the pace with which we accumulate new knowledge. To manage this changing learning landscape, you need to work smart. This book aims to help you do that by starting from a high-level, systems perspective and working down into key, representative subtopics. This way you are able to focus on key concepts that are broadly applicable to almost all modern inventions. An important tool that this book provides to help you with learning in the long term is the model-based approach, and especially the hybrid-systems modeling formalism, which is introduced early in the book and used throughout to provide practice.

This book is also intended to encourage you to ask questions. To set an example, the book itself motivates many topics and ideas by asking questions. Asking questions is one of the most important skills for lifelong learningit is an activity that involves taking stock of what we know and identifying the gaps that we need to fill to achieve a certain goal. The book is not about what you should do with these concepts, but rather, what you could do. It is up to you and your understanding of the world and its needs to put these concepts to work. We challenge you to show us how new systems can be designed.

Teamwork and collaboration are essential because many modern inventions require bringing together ideas from a wide range of disciplines, and to bring in knowledge from a vast number of areas. As a skill, teamwork is at the top of what employers tell us they need. Of course, teamwork and collaboration can be a tricky subject to learn about from a bookwe only experience collaboration when we work with others. This book will help you do that in three ways. First, it introduces key concepts from several areas that are often implicated in new inventions, including those that are related to computing and some related to more physical science and engineering disciplines. To talk about these concepts, some basic vocabulary is introduced. Both the concepts and the vocabulary help us appreciate the type of expertise that experts in different subjects have, and to build the beginnings of the vocabulary needed to work with these experts.