Cyber-Physical Systems: Definitions, Foundations and Open Challenges

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) integrate computation, networking and physical processes. This review summarises how the field was framed in early foundational papers and later surveys, the main design challenges they identify (the treatment of time, concurrency, heterogeneity, and the interplay of control and computing), and how the concept has been applied to manufacturing. It also identifies recurring themes that cross application domains and points out topics where the cited sources are mainly conceptual rather than quantitative. This is a narrative review; it contains no new data.