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Computational intelligence for decision support in cyber-physical systems
Khan Z., Ali A., Riaz Z., Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated, New York, NY, 2014. 485 pp. Type: Book
Date Reviewed: Oct 17 2014

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) consist of cyber components that implement the control of a physical system. They are usually designed as networks of sensors, actuators, and processing devices, so as to help humans and machines to interact and control complex physical processes.

CPSs are very attractive for their potential impact on society and the economy, but they pose a number of challenges, often in terms of safety and reliability. Furthermore, the need for effective control of the physical dynamics in complex systems requires design solutions that go beyond those offered by classical design methods.

This book addresses the subject of endowing CPSs with computational intelligence (CI), that is, intelligence emerging from the adoption of linguistically and biologically motivated computational paradigms such as, among others: neural networks, usually employed to learn complex relationships from observed data by roughly mimicking the behavior of natural neural cells; evolutionary computation, inspired by natural evolution, to perform heuristic search of optimal (or nearly optimal) solutions within huge search spaces; and fuzzy logic that tries to formalize the way humans represent and process imprecise knowledge based on perceptions.

The book is a collection of five independent parts, each of which covers an application area where CPSs play a significant role. The first part is more general as it concerns wireless networks of sensors and actuators, which define the framework of any CPS. Four more specific topics are covered in subsequent parts: healthcare and medicine, robotics, power and energy, and other industrial applications. Each part consists of two to four chapters of different size and specificity. The most interesting chapters are those with a good survey of the current literature on specific aspects of CPSs, such as configurability, energy efficiency, communication protocols, and so on. In addition, there are a couple of chapters that review the state of the art of CPSs in some application areas like the healthcare industry (a promising field indeed) and micro-factories. Furthermore, there is a chapter that reviews case studies involving CI techniques for tackling decision problems arising from smart grids. The remaining chapters are very specific and oriented toward specialized readers with a strong engineering background.

The role of CI in CPSs is emphasized in most chapters. Fuzzy logic has been used to design expert systems that enable reliable communication of events between nodes of a CPS. Also, a simple fuzzy inference system has been designed for computing the closeness of visual objects in a CPS that enables the identification of the focus of attention of a person wearing an eye-tracking device. A decision support system based on fuzzy rules has been proposed for the design of a decision module in an autonomous vehicle. Fault detection (a hot topic in CPS design) has been also tackled with a fuzzy inference system of Takagi-Sugeno type.

Evolutionary computation has been widely used for the design of CPS modules. As an example, a genetic algorithm has been applied for the optimization of the design variables of a micro milling machine as well as for parameter estimation in photovoltaic models. A multi-objective evolutionary decision-making process has been included in an online demand management system for smart power grids, while a genetic algorithm has been applied to design a load transfer system. Particle swarm optimization (another approach falling in the evolutionary computation paradigm, based on mimicking the dynamics of swarms) has been used to design a modular flight controller. Neuro-fuzzy networks (that is, a hybrid of neural networks and fuzzy inference systems) have been applied for pulse compression as well as for the control of steering and trajectory tracking in car-like autonomous vehicles. These and other examples clearly show that CI has the potential to greatly enhance the success of CPSs in all areas of application.

Unfortunately, a chapter on the general topic of applying CI in CPSs is missing; this would have been a great aid to researchers of CI approaching CPSs and vice versa, thus encouraging the cross-fertilization of expertise. The book is not an easy read for CI experts without a solid background in CPSs or control systems; on the other hand, many applications reported in the book use very basic CI schemes. Overall, the book follows the mainstream of many edited books: it fixes a milestone of a fast-changing technology so that it can be used by researchers and graduate students as a snapshot of the current state of the art, but its contents are prone to rapid aging.

Reviewer:  Corrado Mencar Review #: CR142846 (1501-0007)
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