Cyber-Physical Systems in Vehicular Communications

Like the other emerging technologies such as computer evolution and embedded machines, the Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) have also gained much attention from various manufactures and academia. Moreover, we have several on board sensors installed inside the vehicles, responsible for sensing different activities within the vehicle and surrounding such as temperature, intruder detection and so on. Recently, those sensors/actuator systems became responsive to the physical world by enabling real time control emanating from conventional embedded systems, thus emerging a new research paradigm named Cyber-Physical System (CPS). Likewise, other applications for CPS, we have Vehicular Cyber-Physical System (VCPS) that is not a new concept. For now, VCPS may refer to a wide range of transportation management system that is integrated strongly and should be highly accurate, real-time, and efficient. This chapter provides readers with the details of the term “VCPS” followed by the historical overview of this new emerging field including research challenges and future aspects of the VCPS.