Towards integration of CPS and systems engineering in education

Abstract

Education of future engineers and other stakeholders will be of paramount importance for designing, producing, procuring, operating and managing future Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) of unprecedented complexity that will underpin most technological systems in society. We investigate the relation between CPS, Systems Engineering (SE) and the Conceive - Design - Implement -Operate (CDIO) engineering education initiative with the aim to find ways of improving current CPS education. With its emphasis on experiences with realistic engineering settings, lifecycle perspective and complementary skills in communication and collaboration, CDIO provides several ingredients that are essential for future engineers. SE with its set of best practices and systems thinking, provides guidelines and practices of strong relevance for most (if not all) engineering programs and especially for those involving the engineering of highly complex systems such as CPS. We conclude that applying a CDIO approach for a CPS program together with infusion of a suitable portion of SE practices appears to be a promising way forward to reform CPS programs. We discuss how such SE practices can be integrated into engineering programs and in particular propose aspects of SE that would be useful to incorporate into capstone courses (larger education projects in the final master level stages).