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In embarking towards Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) with unprecedented capabilities it becomes essential to improve our understanding of CPS complexity and how we can deal with it. We investigate facets of CPS complexity and the limitations of Collaborating Information Processing Systems (CIPS) in dealing with those facets. By CIPS we refer to teams of humans and computer-aided engineering systems that are used to develop CPS. Furthermore, we specifically analyze characteristic differences among software and physical parts within CPS. The analysis indicates that it will no longer be possible to rely only on architectures and skilled people, or process and model/tool centered approaches. The tight integration of heterogeneous physical, cyber, CPS components, aspects and systems, results in a situation with interfaces and interrelations everywhere, each requiring explicit consideration. The role of modelbased and computer aided engineering will become even more essential, and design methodologies will need to deeply consider interwoven systems and software aspects, including the hidden costs of software.

This paper provides an analysis of embedded systems education using a didactic approach. Didactics is a field of educational studies mostly referring to research aimed at investigating what's unique with a particular subject and how this subject ought to be taught. From the analysis we conclude that embedded systems has a thematic identity and a functional legitimacy. This implies that the subject would benefit from being taught with an exemplifying selection and using an interactive communication, meaning that the education should move from teaching “something of everything” toward “everything of something.” The interactive communication aims at adapting the education toward the individual student, which is feasible if using educational methods inspired by project-organized and problem-based learning. This educational setting is also advantageous as it prepares the students for a future career as embedded system engineers. The conclusions drawn from the analysis correlate with our own experiences from education in mechatronics as well as with a recently published study of 21 companies in Sweden dealing with industrial software engineering.

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Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are becoming indispensable in our modern way of life. As an application domain CPS is not new. As an intellectual discipline, however, it is. This paper focuses on CPS modeling, which is an essential activity in CPS design, with multiple challenges. In particular, stakeholders lack a systematic framework and guidelines to help them choose among the many available modeling languages and tools. We propose such a framework in this paper. Our framework consists of three elements: viewpoints, which capture the stakeholders' interests and concerns; concrete languages and tools, among which the stakeholders must make a selection when defining their CPS design environments; and abstract, mathematical formalisms, which are the "semantic glue" linking the two worlds. As part of the framework, we survey various formalisms, languages, and tools and explain how they are related. We also provide examples of viewpoints and discuss how they are related to formalisms.

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Cooperative driving systems enable vehicles to adapt their motion to the surrounding trac situation by utilizing information communicated by other vehicles and infrastructure in the vicinity. How should these systems be designed and integrated into the modern automobile? What are the needed functions, key architectural elements and their relationships? We created a reference architecture that systematically answers these questions and validated it in real world usage scenarios. Key ndings concern required services and enabling them via the architecture. We present the reference architecture and discuss how it can inuence the design and implementation of such features in automotive systems.