Research in Cyber Physical Systems
In the area of modeling Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), we have been active on both the education and research front. On the educational front, we have developed a first course on CPS that a) brings together the wide range of core scientific areas relevant to CPS and b) makes use of extensive modeling and simulation techniques to help animate the various concepts for students. On the research front, much of our effort has been on developing rigorous foundations for simulation of hybrid systems, including dealing with issues such as modeling Zeno behavior. This work is yielding usable and accessible tools that deliver to CPS developers a diverse range of mathematical methods (differential equations, hybrid systems, programming languages semantics) and has benefited greatly from continual evaluation by domain experts with expertise in a wide range of CPS domains, including robotics, automotive systems, and HVAC systems.