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Preparing for the Future of CPS Development

Published Oct 13, 2014

The increasing capabilities of computing systems, including their connectivity, paves the way for novel applications and systems that do not respect traditional academic disciplines. Future computer and software intensive systems will increasingly contain environment models, be situation aware, perform decision making - all gradually contributing to increasing levels of autonomy. And with this comes increased complexity and the need for improved awareness and definition to ensure system safety.

Fredrik Asplund, Ph.D. Student at Mechatronics, Dept of Machine Design

- The complexity and size of modern Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) has led to a sharp decline in productivity among CPS designers, observes Mechatronics Ph.D. Student Fredrik Asplund. He continues:

- And in safety-critical domains, requirements on safety aggravate this problem further, not only by being difficult to ensure, but also because of their high importance to society.

Fredrik´s research focuses on ensuring safety and improving awareness when software tools are used to automate development processes to enable new technology to be deployed at a feasible effort and cost. Fredrik will defend his thesis "Risks Related to the Use of Software Tools when Developing Cyber-Physical Systems" on Tuesday 21 October, from kl. 13.00 in lecture hall D3 (KTH Campus, Lindstedtsvägen 5). Contact fasplund@kth.se for more information and read his abstract in both English and Swedish below:

Abstract (pdf 160 kB)

Professor John McDermid.

His opponent, Professor John McDermid, from the University of York, department of Computer Science, leads hte world´s largest academic research group studying the safety and security of computer-based systems, and is responsible for many of the initiatives now widely used in the development and assessment of safety critical systems in industry. Read more at: Safety Critical Systems and Security - Reducing risks, saving money .

On Wednesday 22 October, Professor McDermid will also give an invited talk during a half-day seminar. Read more and register on the ICES webpage:  Requirement Management in Safety-Critical Systems .

Professor Martin Toerngren.

Dealing with the challenges of developing Cyber-Physical Systems also requires renewed education. For these purposes, Professor Martin Toerngren is organizing several events to elicit needs and ways to improve the current educational programs in Mechatronics and embedded systems at KTH. Highlights include:

2014 Workshop on Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems Education (WESE) at ESWeek in New Delhi.

Co-hosting a Cyber-Physical Systems Education Workshop at UC Berkeley on 4 November.

ICES Workshop on Embedded Systems Education (this event took place on 26 August).