Planning: DCL EPSCoR: CPS Frontier: Engineering the Next-Generation Complex CPS-Human Systems

This planning project takes a unique multidisciplinary cyber-physical systems (CPS) perspective in the control of complex system-of-systems. Learning, estimation, and control of sparsely observed spatiotemporal processes/complex system-of-systems in the presence of multiple sources of variabilities/uncertainties, while offering performance guarantees is a fundamental problem that is encountered in many CPS domains. While this planning project will work towards developing new monitoring and control paradigms, the underlying fundamental CPS research has potential to make a significant impact on diverse CPS arenas such as agriculture, chemical/biological systems, smart communities, smart grid, and transportation systems. This planning project involves activities designed to enable the creation of a multi-university consortium that will not only advance the state of the art in applied CPS research but also host innovative educational, workforce development, outreach, and industry engagement programs. The CPS perspective is empowered by foundational advances in (1) multimodal sensing and detection; (2) system state assessment and tracking with limited spatiotemporal data; (3) control and modulation of system states along with optimal plans for meeting specified objectives. While machine learning tools are being increasingly used to support the foundational tasks of sensing, detection, diagnostics, planning, and control, humans will always remain an integral part of safety-critical CPS systems. Advances in modeling and quantifying the performance of this human-AI interactive decision space will be an integral and unique aspect of this project. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.