This paper aims at helping to bring about a better understanding of the relationship between Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Smart Systems (SSI)^[1] paradigms analysing the coexistence, overlap and specific differences in terms of domains of application of the two concepts, in an IoT and Industrie/y4.0 context.

For that purpose, in this paper different ‘views’ are presented that correspond to different modalities or classes of applications, and examples are given of their application to support the analysis.

A first look is taken at definitions.

A definition for Smart Systems in common use emphasises externally visible functionality and the heterogeneous components required to realise Smart Systems, in particular direct or indirect sensing and actuating functions and respective interfacing.

The common CPS definition emphasises collaboration and communication between the CPS nodes, treating sensing, actuation and external communications technologies more as an abstract given.

The analysis observes that SSI and CPS are largely overlapping paradigms describing what it considered to be the essentially the same phenomenon; however, differentiated by the fact that each includes an area not, or not so well covered by the other.

To illustrate this, the analysis makes use of 3 ‘views’:

The ‘edge view’:

• ‘edge (of a system) view’: there is a single ‘edge’, the boundary between ‘the system’ and the outside

The ‘system view’

• emphasis on an externally visible functionality of a more or less complex system

The ‘DAD view’  Distributed, Autonomous and Dynamic decision taking

• clusters, incl. large clusters and ‘clouds’, with local decision taking according to a Distributed, Autonomous and Dynamic paradigm

The analysis of the three views leads to relatively simple set of conclusions, giving guidance on when both paradigms are to be considered equivalent, and when one paradigm is better suited than the other, as better describing an application scenario.

The paper then gives examples of overlap and specificity of each view applied to different IoT scenarios, and to different Ind4.0 scenarios.

Finally, suggestions are given for refining the analysis for specific application domains.

The analysis presented has been proposed to EPoSS in order to improve the perception of these paradigms within the EPoSS and ECSEL communities, and outside in the FoF and Ind4.0 communities.

[1] We use SSI, Smart System Integration, as abbreviation for Smart Systems, strictly speaking, however, Smart System Integration refers to the principles and techniques that are used in the realisation of Smart Systems and Cyber Physical Systems.