Large scale cyber-physical systems: Distributed actuation, in-network processing and Machine-to-Machine communications

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) paradigm enables machines (sensors, actuators, robots, smart meter readers) to communicate with each other with little or no human intervention. M2M is key enabling technology for the cyber physical systems (CPS). This paper explores CPS beyond M2M concept, and looks at futuristic applications. Our vision is CPS with distributed actuation and in-network processing. We describe few particular use cases that motivate the development of the M2M communication primitives tailored to large scale cyber-physical systems. M2M communications in literature were considered in limited extent so far. The existing work is based on small scale M2M models and centralized solutions. Different sources discuss different primitives. Few existing decentralized solutions do not scale well. There is a need to design M2M communication primitives that will scale to thousands and trillions of M2M devices, without sacrificing solution quality. The main paradigm shift is to design localized algorithms, where CPS nodes make decisions based on local knowledge.