Safety and Security of Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) consist of software-controlled computing devices communicating with each other and interacting with the physical world through sensors and actuators. A CPS has, therefore, two parts: The cyber part implementing most of the functionality and the physical part, i.e., the real world. Typical examples of CPS's are a water treatment plant, an unmanned aerial vehicle, and a heart pacemaker. Because most of the functionality is implemented in software, the software is of crucial importance. The software determines the functionality and many CPS properties, such as safety, security, performance, real-time behavior, etc. Therefore, avoiding safety accidents and security incidents in the CPS requires highly dependable software.