CPS: Medium: Collaborative Research: CyberMech, a Novel Run-Time Substrate for Cyber-Mechanical Systems

Abstract: Growing demands on our civil infrastructure have heightened the need for smart structural components and systems whose behavior and performance can be controlled under a variety of loading scenarios such as high winds and earthquakes. However, due to the sheer size, scale and cost of most civil engineering structures, design and testing of such smart structures needs to be conducted using a hybrid cyber-physical approach where the infrastructure system in question, for example a bridge, is studied by coupling a small number of physical components with a numerical model of the rest of the structure. Undoubtedly, the success of such a hybrid approach, especially for dynamic real-time applications, hinges on effective integration of the cyber and physical components of the system. This project provides the essential building blocks and a computational integration platform to enable real-time hybrid testing of civil engineering structures. Design and development of physical components, multi-level numerical models, and real-time control algorithms will be conducted at Purdue University. Washington University will provide an adaptive, configurable concurrency platform and communication mechanisms that meet the strict scheduling constraints of real-time cyber-physical systems. The two institutions will collaboratively design a prototype system and conduct extensive testing to validate the integration of the various components and evaluate system performance. Specifications, software, benchmarks, and data developed during the course of this project will be made freely available to the cyber-physical research community. In addition to directly advancing the state-of-the-art in real-time hybrid testing, this research will also impact the areas of avionics, automotive design, smart grids for distributed power transmission and similar applications in other domains.