Many of today's and most of tomorrow's computing systems interact with the physical world through sensors and actuators. The ability to close feedback loops among those devices over dynamic wireless multi-hop networks enables a new breed of powerful cyber-physical system (CPS) applications, but calls for concerted research contributions from the control and communication communities to meet the extraordinary dependability, adaptability, and efficiency requirements of these systems.
The EcoCPS project has made significant progress in this direction by demonstrating fast feedback control over low-power wireless multi-hop networks with provable guarantees on closed-loop stability, as well as unprecedented efficiency and flexibility in the use of limited resources by tightly integrating self-triggered control with real-time wireless communication.