We are pleased to announce the NSF 2025 Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) Principal Investigators’ Meeting. The meeting will be held Thursday, March 13, 2025, and Friday, March 14, 2025, with an arrival day of Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
The meeting will be held in person on the campus of Vanderbilt University in the Student Life Center (SLC) located at the Student Life Center (SLC) located at 310 25th Ave. South, Nashville, TN 37212. Meeting information can be found here at the 2025 CPS PI Meeting website which provides access to the meeting registration, program agenda, program material submissions pages, venue/lodging, and other important information.
1. PI MEETING REGISTRATION AND ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS (Meeting Registration Deadline: Friday, February 14th, 2025):
At least one PI or Co-PI of each active CPS project is required to attend the entire program on both days of every annual CPS PI meeting held throughout the duration of a given CPS grant, including during no-cost extensions. All project personnel attending in person must complete the PI registration webform at 2025 CPS PI Meeting Registration | Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization (cps-vo.org). The registration code is CPS2025PIMTG.
If you are the PI of a project and cannot attend this year's PI meeting, you are responsible for identifying the name of at least one person to serve as the project representative. In this case, please send an email message to David Corman (NSF) at (dcorman@nsf.gov) or Oleg Sokolsky at (osokolsk@nsf.gov) and copy Frankie King at (frankie.king@vanderbilt.edu) to provide the name of the person who will be attending. Then inform your alternate to register for the meeting at 2025 CPS PI Meeting Registration | Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization (cps-vo.org). The registration code will be provided in the official invitation letter sent to project PIs so please share it with your alternate.
In addition to the in-person project personnel participating in collaborative research projects, at least one PI from each of the collaborating institutions should plan to attend the entire meeting remotely.
If more than one PI, Co-PI, or other project personnel would like to attend in person, then they should register on the Waitlist at https://cps-vo.org/group/cps-pimtg25/waitlist. The registration code will be provided in the official invitation letter sent to project PIs.
Wait-listed individuals will be informed up to one month but no later than two weeks prior to the meeting dates if space is made available.
A PI can be the in-person representative for more than one project.
Each PI is responsible for communicating the above information to the respective project personnel.
There is no registration fee to attend the meeting.
When registering, please be sure to accurately enter the seven-digit NSF award number and the award project title for the CPS project that the attendee will represent if such a project exists.
The number of participants at the meeting is limited by the available space. (Since NSF requires the participation of PIs or co-PIs of CPS projects at the annual National PI meeting, priority will be given to their registration.) The remaining space will be made available for the registration of guests. All guests will receive confirmation regarding the acceptance of their registration.
On the evening of Wednesday, March 13, 2025, the registration check-in desk will be open from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. for persons who wish to register and pick up registration check-in materials early. On both full days of the meeting, the registration check-in desk will open starting at 7:00 a.m.
2. HOTEL COURTESY BLOCK RESERVATIONS (Deadline: Monday, February 19, 2025):
The organizers have negotiated courtesy room blocks at U.S. Government per diem rates or better at three hotels that are in close walking proximity to the VU SLC for your convenience. Hotel reservations can be made by choosing from one of the three courtesy room blocks at either the Vanderbilt Marriott, Hyatt House, and Homewood Suites listed on the 2024 CPS PI Meeting website.
The deadline to make reservations at the following hotels is:
Wednesday, February 19, 2025 by Midnight
The following blocks of rooms were selected based on the 0.8 miles or less walking distance to the meeting location, Student Life Center (SLC). For your convenience, there will also be a dedicated charter bus service to the meeting locations to get attendees to and from these hotels during the PI Meeting.
Please make your reservations online at one of the three following options:
The Homewood Suites by Hilton courtesy block at $199/night. (0.3 miles from the SLC, 6-min walk, 2-min drive). Click on the booking link for Direct Access: Booking Link. Individual Call In: Guests can call the hotel directly at 615-340-8000 and reference either 2025 CPS PI Meeting and/or Suns Workshop to have the rate applied.
IMPORTANT: For the Homewood Suites by Hilton Vanderbilt, please also note the following:
The dates of Monday, March 10 and Tuesday, March 11 are for persons attending only the SUNS Workshop (Invitation Only)
The dates of Wednesday, March 12 and Thursday, 13 are for persons attending only the 2025 NSF CPS PI Meeting.
All dates listed are for persons invited to both events.
Hyatt House Nashville at Vanderbilt: ($189/night – 0.8 miles from the SLC, 15-min walk, 3-min drive). Book Your Group/Corporate Rate or by calling the hotel at 615-320-9000. Click on the booking link for Direct Access: Booking Link - if needed, enter the code G-NSFC under the corporate/group code portion. Individual Call In: Book Your Group/Corporate Rate or by calling the hotel at 615-320-9000, and please mention the 2025 Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) PI Meeting group block to receive the reduced rate.
Travelers who wish to reserve rooms outside of these blocks will incur increased room rates and will not be able to register online but will need to call the hotels directly. Please be advised that reservations made for days outside of the block might incur higher or lower room rates, depending on the day. When calling, please reference the event name: “2025 Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) PI Meeting”.
Reservations must be made no later than Wednesday, February 19, 2024, by midnight. Reservations made after that time will be based on availability at the hotels' prevailing rates. Make your reservations early to secure a room. Breakfast, lunch, and light refreshments will be provided at the meeting. Participants will be responsible for their own dinners.
3. PROGRAM INFORMATION:
Mini-Workshops:
Five (5) mini-workshops on innovative topics in CPS will take place during the PI Meeting. Please check the program agenda as the meeting approaches for the breakout session topics. PIs will have the opportunity to provide input on the workshop topics through the registration webform at 2025 CPS PI Meeting Registration | Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization (cps-vo.org). Please intermittently check the program agenda at 2025 CPS PI Meeting - Program Agenda | Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization (cps-vo.org) and/or the Mini-Workshops link at 2025 CPS PI Meeting - Mini-Workshops/Panels | Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization (cps-vo.org) for more details.
a. CPS in Agriculture - Agricultural Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) integrate modern sensors, computational power, and control technologies into farming, creating data-driven approaches that enhance productivity and sustainability. Agricultural CPS also bolster resilience against climate change and unexpected farming challenges. By enabling rapid responses to threats like extreme weather, pest outbreaks, or disease, CPS helps protect crops and reduce losses. This workshop will provide talks by leading scientists working at the intersection of CPS and Agriculture, highlighting the future challenges and opportunities in this domain. Talks will be followed by an interactive discussion and Q&A session.
b. CPS in the Age of AI - As Generative AI (GenAI) reshapes the technological landscape, its integration into Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) offers both vast opportunities and complex challenges. This workshop aims to explore how GenAI can address longstanding CPS challenges in modeling, system design, and multi-agent coordination while ensuring trustworthiness, safety, and robustness. We will delve into the latest problems posed by GenAI—such as verification of AI components, managing uncertainty, and ethical considerations—and discuss solutions rooted in the CPS community’s expertise in formal methods, system theory, and algorithm design. The workshop will use World Café Style discussions. By rotating through thematic tables, each hosted by a facilitator, participants will collaborate to identify critical research directions and lay the groundwork for future projects that advance the frontiers of CPS in the age of AI. Table themes may include Trustworthiness in AI-enabled CPS, Generative AI for CPS Modeling and Design, Addressing Ethical and Societal Challenges of GenAI in CPS, GenAI for Multi-Agent Systems and Coordination, GenAI for CPS Applications. Table themes will be adjusted based on interest expressed in the registration form.
c. CPS & Digital Twins - Digital twins (DTs) provide a pivotal role in advancing in cyber-physical systems by creating dynamic, real-time virtual replicas of physical assets, processes, or environments, offering capabilities far beyond traditional simulators. They continuously synchronize with their physical counterparts through sensor data and feedback loops to provide actionable insights for monitoring, accurate modeling, and predicting system behavior under varying conditions, significantly reducing the need for costly and often infeasible physical testing. Digital twins are indispensable in several CPS domains including manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, energy systems, disaster management, aerospace, and smart cities. This workshop features plenary talks, panels, and interactive roundtables with participants from academia and industry to discuss DT challenges like real-time data integration, scalability, and robust modeling for complex, interconnected systems.
d. CPS Resilience - The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has published an important report in February 2024 on resilience of Cyber Physical Systems Strategy for Cyber-Physical Resilience: Fortifying our Critical Infrastructure for a Digital World. One takeaway from the report is to identify grand challenges on which research should be focused, and support the creation of a National Research agenda to develop technology solutions that can be transitioned over short, mid, and long-horizons to substantially increase CPS resilience. This workshop will discuss the state of the art in CPS resilience research and identify potential gaps where further research is necessary considering short, medium and long-time horizons. Specifically, we are interested in areas where the critical issue is not simply the deployment of existing solutions on a widespread basis. What are new and creative concepts especially when dealing with systems that are not necessarily “green field” (i.e., systems that have substantial legacy components in them). How can AI research either improve or diminish CPS resilience? How can we measure resilience and what are approaches for experimentation? Can we achieve guarantees / or assurance? Cyber-physical system resilience is the ability of the system to prepare for threats and hazards (Natural or man-made, physical or cyber), adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from adverse conditions and disruptions. For example, it includes the capacity of an integrated system to keep running—even if not at peak performance—should it lose specific functions.
e. Human-in-the-Loop CPS in the Era of Human-AI Alignment: Impact and Future Direction - This workshop addresses critical gaps in developing responsible and effective Human-in-the-Loop Cyber-Physical Systems (HITL CPS). It focuses on three key areas: formalizing the concept of alignment between humans and AI within these systems, integrating social and ethical considerations into their design and deployment, and assessing the broader societal impact of these technologies. Through talks, panels, and roundtables, the workshop aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and ensure HITL CPS development is both technically robust and socially beneficial.
Call for Tutorials:
We invite proposals for tutorials to be presented at the CPS-PI 2025 Meeting. These tutorials should offer valuable instruction to a broad audience within the Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) community. We encourage proposals that cover specific topics, introduce new systems or tools, or provide foundational knowledge for understanding key technical advancements in CPS.
Proposals should be no more than two pages and must include the following:
Title: The title of the tutorial.
Motivation and Rationale: A concise description explaining the tutorial's purpose and relevance to the broader CPS community. This should clearly define the target audience and explain why the tutorial is of significant interest.
Organizers: Please include each organizer’s full name, affiliation, contact information, and brief biography.
Format and Technical Requirements: A detailed description of the planned tutorial format (e.g., lectures, hands-on exercises, demonstrations) and any specific technical requirements (e.g., software, hardware, internet access).
Proposals should be submitted to <cps-pimtg-2025-PC@cps-vo.org> with the subject PI_Last_Name_CPSPIMTG2025_TutorialName by Tuesday, February 7, 2025 AoE.
Proposals will be evaluated based on their relevance to CPS-PI 2025 participants and overall quality. Accepted tutorial organizers must create a beta website two weeks before the PI Meeting. Websites should contain preliminary content and links to tutorial materials.
5. PI PROJECT PREPARATION GUIDANCE:
* All project materials are due by CoB Wednesday, February 19, 2025
As in the past, a major goal of CPS PI Meetings is to highlight achievements in the CPS program. NSF needs your help to provide compelling materials from your project that cover both the intellectual merit and broader impacts of your work. Content from PI presentations, posters, lightning talks, and videos may be used in Congressional testimony and by NSF officials when justifying or expanding the scope and scale of the CPS program. Please prepare your materials for this PI meeting with this reuse in mind.
Lightning Talks:
PIs of active CPS projects are required to submit Lightning Talks slides in a 90-second pre-recorded video format. Lightning talks will not be presented “live” at the PI Meeting but will be posted to the 2024 CPS PI Meeting website for public viewing before the opening of the PI Meeting. Please submit Lightning Talks at the link https://cps-vo.org/group/cps-pimtg25/project_materials_submission by CoB Wednesday, February 19, 2025. Templates have been created for your convenience to prepare Lightning Talks content at the link below:
Posters and Poster Sessions:
PIs (or alternates) of active CPS projects are required to submit project posters and abstracts and are encouraged to submit poster videos. Posters will be presented “live” during poster sessions. PPTX Templates for preparing posters can be found below. Please use the templates for preparing your poster:
Download Horizontal Poster Template Download Vertical Poster Template
Posters should provide an overview of the research topics and results and convey the research objectives and scientific directions of the project. It would be particularly helpful if you include the scientific challenge questions being addressed in the project context that will contribute to innovative approaches for CPS systems science and engineering. Collaborative projects (multi-institution, each with unique award numbers) can submit a single joint poster, abstract, and video covering the entire project if desired. The PI of the lead institution is responsible for ensuring that each aspect of the research is covered. Please inform the meeting organizers if you plan to submit one team project. Please submit the Poster/Abstracts/Videos here: https://cps-vo.org/group/cps-pimtg25/project_materials_submission by the deadline of Wednesday, February 19, 2025. Once poster content is collected, the organizers will send out a poster session presentation map and list to project representatives. If a poster presenter has a valid reason for presenting on the opposite day assigned, please contact the organizers as soon as possible at cps-pimtg@cps-vo.org.
PIs (or alternate) are responsible for the following:Printing poster content
Bringing and/or arranging for posters to be delivered and set up by early registration on the arrival night or by 8 a.m. on the first meeting day.
Presenting or identifying at least one person to present the poster during the assigned poster session
Dismantling and discarding the poster at the end of the meeting
Poster Sessions will be held on Thursday, March 13, 2025, and Friday, March 14, 2025. More than 200 project posters will be presented at this year's meeting. Posters will NOT stay up for both full days, so Day One presenters will need to remove and take their posters with them at the end of the Day One session. Day Two presenters will need to pin their posters on the morning of their presentation.
Half of the PIs will be presenting their posters during the scheduled session on Day One: Wed, March 12th, and the other half on Day Two: Thurs, March. Projects will be assigned a location number and schedule announced via e-mail to the lead PI or designated presenter after the rest of the program has been determined. Requests for a specific location number and/or specific day to be scheduled for show and tell should be made known to the meeting organizers as soon as possible.
The poster display stands have a cushioned backing panel and are 4 feet tall by 8 feet wide. Each poster stand will accommodate a total of four posters (two on the front and two on the back). Thus, each individual poster should be no more than 4 feet tall x 4 feet wide in size. Printed versions of posters may be in any format that fits within that space. However, the electronic copy submitted must be in PDF file format. There will not be any table space or electrical outlets. If you are participating in a demonstration, you can request your project posters to be co-located alongside your demonstration.
Local Printing Info:
FedEx Office Print & Ship Center
2308 West End Ave, Nashville, TN 37203
Demonstrations (Optional):
It is optional for interested PIs to prepare project demonstrations. Due to space limitations, a total of ten (10) project demonstrations can be supported and will be confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis. Interest in presenting a demonstration can be indicated on the meeting registration webform at https://cps-vo.org/group/cps-pimtg25/project_materials_submission.
The following equipment will be provided for each demo:
- 42" monitor and HDMI cable
- 6 ft table
- Two chairs
- Easel and foam board (for posters)
- Powerstrip
Presenters are responsible for providing your own laptops and adapters (from computer into HDMI cable) to connect to the monitors.
Project Presentations:
Program presentations will be in the form of:
- Keynotes
- Invited Panel Talks
- Mini-Workshops
- PI Long Talks
PIs who are invited to present panel or breakout session presentations will be contacted directly by members of the program committee. Presentations should be uploaded at https://cps-vo.org/group/cps-pimtg25/presentation_collection by Friday, February 19th, 2025. Please complete this presentation webform with your most updated bio and snapshot. For PIs who are invited to speak, a PPTX presentation template can be downloaded at the link below:
Download Presentation Template
A presentation laptop will be provided, but please let the organizers know in advance if you plan to use your personal laptop and if there are movies (with sound) in your presentation. It is expected that all presentations will be from computers and displayed via projector, which will be available. If you require additional specific audio-visual needs for your presentation, please contact Frankie King at (frankie.king@vanderbilt.edu) or Jason Gigax (Jason.w.gigax@vanderbilt.edu).
5. PROGRAM AGENDA:
As in the past, a major goal of CPS PI Meetings is to highlight achievements in the CPS program. A preliminary draft agenda can be found on the CPS PI Meeting website at https://cps-vo.org/group/cps-pimtg25/agenda and will be updated continuously as we approach the meeting dates. Please intermittently check the website for updates. Program start times are at 8:00 am CST each meeting day and closing remarks conclude by 4:00 pm CST on day two.
For this year's meeting, we are excited to report on the following changes in programmed activities that are designed to maximize the PI community's active participation and input. The 2024 CPS PI Meeting will incorporate a limited number of panel and breakout sessions into the program on innovative topics in CPS. We invite the submission of breakout proposals from the CPS community that can define the future of CPS research vision and introduce recent research advances to interested PIs and graduate students. Breakouts should include a mix of invited presentations and panel discussions that encourage active participation from attendees.
For general PI Meeting questions or technical support with accessing any links, please contact Frankie King (frankie.king@vanderbilt.edu) and Jason Gigax (jason.w.gigax@vanderbilt.edu) directly or the meeting organizers at cps-pimtg@cps-vo.org.