This comprehensive book examines a range of examples, prepared by a diverse group of academic and industry practitioners, which demonstrate how cloud-based simulation is being extensively used across many disciplines, including cyber-physical systems engineering. This book is a compendium of the state of the art in cloud-based simulation that instructors can use to inform the next generation. It highlights the underlying infrastructure, modeling paradigms, and simulation methodologies that can be brought to bear to develop the next generation of systems for a highly connected society. Such systems, aptly termed cyber-physical systems (CPS), are now widely used in e.g. transportation systems, smart grids, connected vehicles, industrial production systems, healthcare, education, and defense.
Modeling and simulation (M&S), along with big data technologies, are at the forefront of complex systems engineering research. The disciplines of cloud-based simulation and CPS engineering are evolving at a rapid pace, but are not optimally supporting each other’s advancement. This book brings together these two communities, which already serve multi-disciplinary applications. It provides an overview of the simulation technologies landscape, and of infrastructure pertaining to the use of cloud-based environments for CPS engineering. It covers the engineering, design, and application of cloud simulation technologies and infrastructures applicable for CPS engineering. The contributions share valuable lessons learned from developing real-time embedded and robotic systems deployed through cloud-based infrastructures for application in CPS engineering and IoT-enabled society. The coverage incorporates cloud-based M&S as a medium for facilitating CPS engineering and governance, and elaborates on available cloud-based M&S technologies and their impacts on specific aspects of CPS engineering.