Case studies of WSN-CPS applications

The most representative form of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) involves wireless sensor networks (WSNs) as the main means to interact with physical entities. This chapter reviews a number of such WSN-CPS applications and reveals how these applications bridge the gap between sensing information in the cyber world and diverse entities in the physical world. We divide these applications into five categories: smart space systems, healthcare systems, emergency response systems, human activity inference, and smart city systems. Smart space systems monitor energy usage, temperature, and various other attributes of appliances in an indoor space. Healthcare systems assist people to improve physical and emotional well-being through automatic sensing and sense-making technologies. Emergency response systems search for and rescue people as soon as possible in emergency situations such as fire outbreaks. Human activity inference systems interpret human intention behind sensing information to facilitate human daily activities related to social events, road safety, mood detection, interactive games, etc. Smart city systems concentrate on city dynamics such as urban environmental monitoring, human mobility, and transport information. Our discussion in this chapter is steered from simple to complex systems in terms of networking technologies, service ranges, system integration, and human engagement. We conclude by discussing important technical components, future trends, and open issues in WSN-CPS applications in order to provide readers with technical pointers for designing next-generation WSN-CPS applications.