Guest Editorial: Special Section on Real-Time Edge Computing Over New Generation Automation Networks for Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems

CYBER-Physical systems (CPS) are complex entities formed by physical objects with embedded computing and communication capabilities. Communication networks of different kinds are employed in CPS to ensure a reliable and real-time flow of information among cyber-physical objects. CPS deployed in industrial domains, e.g., smart factories, smart power grids, and intelligent transportation systems, are usually characterized by stringent performance requirements. Many of those applications are mission critical and real time in nature, hence demanding dedicated computing and networking technologies with low latency and ultrahigh reliability. Meanwhile, Industry 4.0 is transforming isolated or remote factories into globally interconnected facilities. A paradigm shift is taking place in the way industrial automation systems are designed from the traditional hierarchical pyramid architecture to the cloud-based architecture, where enterprise resource planning and manufacturing execution systems are deployed over the cloud. Although cloud computing technologies are maturing and cloud services are becoming more affordable, due to high transmission and computational latency associated with uploading and processing data across cloud data centers, the existing cloud computing model cannot handle many time-critical industrial applications. Therefore, computing at the edge brings cloud services closer to end devices to reduce communication latency. Edge computing deployment over geographical regions near end devices will enhance performance by meeting real-time requirements. However, there are a number of issues that must be addressed in order to support efficient edge computing implementation with the existing cloud computing infrastructure, including enhancement of low latency, reliability, security, task allocation, data management and aggregation, and network utilization. This Special Section on “real-time edge computing over new generation automation networks for industrial CPS (ICPS)” tackles a wide range of the issues mentioned above, whose aim is to provide a sample of recent developments in real-time edge computing and relevant technologies for ICPS. In particular, this Special Section covers a variety of subjects that are currently causing concern in the community, including the convergence of operation technologies and edge computing technologies