A preliminary discussion of measurement and networking issues in cyber physical systems for industrial manufacturing

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are engineered solutions obtained through the seamless integration of computational algorithms and physical components. Nowadays, they are entitled to drive innovation and competition in different fields such as agriculture, building design and automation, energy, healthcare, transportation and, above all, industrial manufacturing. In fact, CPS technology is going to transform the way people interact with engineered systems — just as the Internet has transformed the way people interact with information. Among CPS technologies, measurement and networking ones play a fundamental role, being enrolled as the natural bridge between the cyber and physical components of a CPS. A number of interconnected sensors and transducers are claimed to give inner and outer, local measurement data that, once processed through suitable algorithms and analytics, have to provide reliable information about the effectiveness of the whole CPS and its interaction with the external world, as well as its health status for maintenance and troubleshooting purposes. So, great attention has to be paid to network models and architectures, to sensor forms and functions, in order to make CPSs properly integrate the continuous and the discrete, compounded by the uncertainty of open environments. The paper aims at opening a preliminary discussion on the role and features of measurement and networking technologies in CPS application fields, with special regard to industrial manufacturing, within a scientific community traditionally close to instrumentation and measurement (IM) issues, in order to stimulate and encourage useful and fruitful cross-fertilization. After some details concerning the general structure of a CPS, its typical architectural model and main features, a special focus is put on CPSs involved in industrial manufacturing along with measurement and networking facets. Some considerations about major measurement challenges that the CPS self-awareness feature poses in maintenance and troubleshooting operations are then drawn. Concluding remarks are finally reported.