We are living through the fourth Industrial Revolution, which is causing steep change in our professions and lives. If you are wondering where to start comprehending its technical aspects, start here. Beginning with an introduction to the study of systems and concluding with social impacts on work lives of the future, engineering professor Dietmar P. F. Möller touches upon a wide range of topics in this easily readable book.

This work is presented as a textbook for an introductory course on cyber-physical systems (CPS), or the Internet-of-Things (IoT) as it is popularly known. This book will be useful to industry practitioners, product managers, entrepreneurs, and researchers who are new to this technical domain.

The first chapter provides an introduction to systems. It covers system modeling, design, and control systems theory concisely. Embedded systems design, hardware-software design aspects, and their relevance to CPS are all well presented with contemporary practices. There is substantial coverage of important components such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), graphical processing units (GPUs), energy management, and so on. There is a good discussion on design metrics that will be valuable for system designers. The evolution of system complexity from the automotive airbag (a simple embedded computing system) to smart cities (IoT architecture) is well described.

The coverage of wireless sensor networks and aspects of communication is rich and wide. A whole chapter is devoted to ubiquitous computing, an essential property of well-designed CPS. Coverage on digital manufacturing is enriched with case studies. There is detailed treatment of the methodology and steps for systems design.

Overall, the treatment of theoretical background for systems design, cyber-physical systems design, and manufacturing aspects is excellent. The strongest aspect of the presentation is the broad, survey-style coverage of different disciplines that come together in CPS/IoT in precise form as chapters. Each chapter provides numerous pointers to other works and Internet links. This book provides a rich compilation of case studies and lists of applications for every concept presented. This is an invaluable source of information for starters in the domain to quickly ramp up their foundation and explore further.

The author uses a simple descriptive style mixed with rigorous mathematical representations. For a technical reader, this combination brings ease of understanding and precision using fewer words. Some parts of the book can be hard to follow for those who aren’t knowledgeable on the mathematical treatment of concepts with notations. The video recording of the author’s lectures that comes as a companion to the book makes it easier for readers [1].

The practice of CPS is changing rapidly in some areas and not developing as fast as projected in others. Consequently, this book requires frequent reviews and updates of facts, figures, and practices to keep it relevant to the contemporary reader. Published in 2016, a few references to older publications already need updates to ensure relevance and currency. The author cannot do justice to a few topics in a couple of pages (for instance, unified modeling language). That is just the nature of the survey-style presentation in the context of fast-paced subject matter.

Considering that the book attempts to cover all the relevant topics for CPS, the omissions of artificial intelligence, analytics, and machine learning are glaring. Modern IoT systems are fueled by machine learning.

This book is an excellent choice as textbook for an introductory course on IoT systems design, if it is affordable for students. It can be a valuable reference book for supporting the early days of a researcher starting CPS research.