Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are systems of collaborating computational entities which are in intensive connection with the surrounding physical world and its on-going processes, providing and using, at the same time, data-accessing and data-processing services available on the internet.

László Monostori, Cyber-physical Production Systems: Roots, Expectations and R&D Challenges, Procedia CIRP, Volume 17, 2014, Pages 9-13 [Elsevier DOI]

Smart IT has an increasing influence on the control of daily life. For instance, smart grids manage power supply, autonomous automobiles take part in traffic, and assistive robotics support humans in production cells. We denote such systems as Cyber-physical Systems (CPSs), where cyber addresses the controlling software, while physical describes the con- trolled hardware. One key aspect of CPSs is their capability to adapt to new situations autonomously or with minimal human intervention. To achieve this, CPSs reuse, reorganize and reconfigure their components during runtime. Some components may even serve in different CPSs and different situations simultaneously.

Krüger, J., Nielebock, S., Krieter, S., Diedrich, C., Leich, T., Saake, G., Ortmeier, F. (2017). Beyond Software Product Lines: Variability Modeling in Cyber-Physical Systems. In Proceedings of the 21st International SPLC - Volume A (pp. 237–241). New York, NY, USA: ACM [ACM DL DOI]

CPS are complex, multi-disciplinary, physically-aware next-generation engineered systems that integrate embedded computing technology into the physical phenomena.

Volkan Gunes, Steffen Peter, Tony Givargis, and Frank Vahid. 2014. A survey on concepts, applications, and challenges in cyber-physical systems. KSII Transactions on Internet & Information Systems 8, 12 (2014) [TIIS DOI]