On September 18, 2015, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued its draft Framework for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), which is “intended to provide a methodology for understanding, designing and building CPS including those  with multiple applications.” CPS are smart systems that interact between physical and computational components. These interconnected and integrated systems “can provide new functionalities to improve quality and life and enable technological advances in critical areas, such as personalized health care, emergency response, traffic flow management, smart manufacturing, defense and homeland security, and energy supply and use.” In addition, they include the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. CPS systems include smart buildings, health care and fitness devices, smart phones and unmanned cars, all of which use motion and movement sensors.

The draft was issued by the Cyber-Physical Systems Public Working Group and its goal is to provide a framework for developers to be able to create new CPS that can work seamlessly with other smart systems using the same definitions and vocabulary.

NIST is requesting comments to the draft through comment forms that can be accessed here.