Overview. The fundamental challenge in cyber-physical systems is the confluence of distinct scientific and engineering models, methods, and tools for cyber and physical systems. Cyber systems are primarily about processing information, formally modeled as patterns of bits. Physical systems are primarily about structure and dynamics, the evolution of the state of the system in time. There are certainly connections between these models, methods, and tools. For example, cyber methods may be used to build simulations of physical systems, and physical systems (e.g.

Abstract: Central to the operation of cyber-physical systems (CPS) is accurate and reliable knowledge of time, both for meaningfully sensing and controlling the physical world state and for correct, high-performance and energy-efficient orchestration of computing and communication operations. Emerging applications that seek to control agile physical processes or depend on precise knowledge of time to infer location and coordinate communication, make use of time with diverse semantics and dynamic quality requirements.