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News Release 14-146

New Special Report highlights transformative potential of cyber-physical systems

Visitors can learn about NSF-supported research impacting transportation and energy, health care and medicine, and environment and sustainability

illustration showing a city, roads and people

CPS integrate sensing, computation, control and networking into physical objects and infrastructure.


November 6, 2014

This material is available primarily for archival purposes. Telephone numbers or other contact information may be out of date; please see current contact information at media contacts.

On the day of the meeting of the nation's top cyber-physical systems researchers supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the agency launched a Special Report spotlighting the agency's investments in this critical area. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) integrate sensing, computation, control and networking into physical objects and infrastructure. Examples of cyber-physical systems include autonomous cars, aircraft autopilot systems, tele-robotics devices and energy-efficient buildings, among many others.

"The motivations for CPS come from different sectors, but many of the technologies face a common set of fundamental challenges in the science and engineering of complex systems that conjoin the cyber and the physical," writes Keith Marzullo, Division Director for Computer and Networked Systems at NSF, in a Perspective article for the report. "By abstracting from the particulars of specific systems and application domains, the NSF CPS program seeks to reveal cross-cutting fundamental scientific and engineering principles that underpin the integration of cyber and physical elements across all application sectors."

Since 2008, NSF has invested more than $250 million to conduct the basic research that underlies all CPS systems.

Read and watch videos about the latest CPS advances and learn how NSF investments in cyber-physical systems are helping to create a world that we could only imagine a few years ago.

-NSF-

Media Contacts
Aaron Dubrow, NSF, (703) 292-4489, email: adubrow@nsf.gov

The U.S. National Science Foundation propels the nation forward by advancing fundamental research in all fields of science and engineering. NSF supports research and people by providing facilities, instruments and funding to support their ingenuity and sustain the U.S. as a global leader in research and innovation. With a fiscal year 2023 budget of $9.5 billion, NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives more than 40,000 competitive proposals and makes about 11,000 new awards. Those awards include support for cooperative research with industry, Arctic and Antarctic research and operations, and U.S. participation in international scientific efforts.

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