The internet of interlaced cyber-physical things

Abstract

As technology keeps evolving, information becomes more accessible due to the newly acquired attributes, mainly ubiquity. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the extraction of information from the local area network and transferring it to the Internet, typically to report an event or control a system. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) serve as an interface between the virtual and physical domains, but are not necessarily connected to the Internet. If these two concepts are combined, it can form a very powerful entity, which once integrated form an Internet of interlaced Cyber-physical Things. Advances accomplished in the union of these fields can be categorized by communication layers, mainly the bottom three layers of the OSI model: physical, data link and network layers. Within the physical layer some attributes that standout are massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), millimeter-wave technology, device-centric architectures, device-to-device connectivity, and M2M communication. In the data link layer, the focus is on the MAC standards and protocols oriented to IoT. At the network layer some important topics are host identification, IPv6, address configuration, neighbor discovery, IP mobility, routing, and forwarding topics. One special attribute in the discussion of the symbiosis between the Internet of Things and Cyber-physical Systems is the interaction between disciplines. The information of a specific discipline could aid the decision making of another discipline. Everything is achieved with no or very little interaction with humans. There is already vast work in the disciplines or research fields of e-Health, Energy, Transportation, Mobility, Environment, and Home/Building among others, where information is been shared or utilized in such a manner that it helps making smarter interdisciplinary decisions.