Constraint-based approach for an early inspection of the feasibility of cyber physical systems

Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) are technical devices typically consisting of numerous interacting electronic and mechanical components. A CPS incorporates many forms of control and monitoring based on a specific selection of physical quantities like temperature and acceleration. When designing a CPS from scratch, the question arises how to identify an optimal setting of components and interaction schemes. Due to the large number of combinations, resulting properties of system candidates like energy consumption or overall feasibility are hard to predict. We present a constraint-based approach to model and inspect configurations of a CPS in an early stage of its development cycle. In addition, utilisation of constraints facilitates consideration of incomplete systems towards identification of valid configurations. A case study concerning a CPS for fall detection using temperature and acceleration sensors demonstrates the practicability of our approach.