Optimization and Control for Secure and Reliable Cyber-Physical Systems

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Computer Science & Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2026 | Viewed by 454

Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Interdisciplinary Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
Interests: artificial intelligence-driven automation; co-design of networked control and communication; embodied intelligence optimization and control algorithms
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1H9, Canada
Interests: networked control systems; cybersecurity

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Guest Editor
Department of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Interests: networked control; multi-agent systems; learning-based control; intelligent systems; cooperative control of mobile robots (UAVs and UGVs); soft robots
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) integrate sensing, communication, computation, and control to enable intelligent monitoring and decision-making in complex engineered systems. With the rapid development of advanced sensing technologies, wireless communication networks, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, CPSs are becoming increasingly interconnected, data-driven, and autonomous. These developments have significantly expanded the scope of CPS applications across industrial automation, smart manufacturing, intelligent transportation systems, smart grids, and large-scale infrastructure systems.

Despite these advances, ensuring the security, reliability, and resilience of CPSs remains a critical challenge. Modern CPSs operate in dynamic and uncertain environments and are vulnerable to faults, cyberattacks, communication constraints, and model uncertainties. As a result, traditional control and monitoring approaches are often insufficient for guaranteeing safe and reliable operation. Recent progress in optimization, learning-based control, distributed estimation, and anomaly detection offers new opportunities to enhance the robustness and efficiency of CPSs. However, significant challenges remain in developing scalable algorithms, integrating data-driven methods with physical system models, and designing security-aware control architectures.

This Special Issue aims to present recent advances in optimization and control methods for secure and reliable cyber-physical systems. We invite high-quality research contributions addressing theoretical developments, algorithmic innovations, and real-world applications in CPSs. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Secure and resilient control for cyber-physical systems;
  • Fault diagnosis and anomaly detection in CPSs;
  • Distributed optimization and control in networked systems;
  • Learning-based control and data-driven methods for CPSs;
  • Networked control systems with communication constraints;
  • Security-aware estimation and monitoring methods;
  • Industrial process monitoring and alarm management;
  • Cyber-attack detection and mitigation in CPSs;
  • Optimization methods for large-scale CPSs;
  • Control and optimization for smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0.

Prof. Dr. Nachuan Yang
Dr. Ziyi Guo
Dr. Jason J. R. Liu
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • cyber-physical systems
  • secure control
  • resilient control
  • fault diagnosis
  • anomaly detection
  • distributed optimization
  • networked control systems
  • learning-based control

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 2413 KB  
Article
Low-Latency, Low-Complexity Digital Demodulator for Chirp Spread-Spectrum Packet Synchronization
by Jaeho T. Im, Jun-Pyo Hong, Joon-Seok Kim, Kyeongjun Ko and Seung-Chan Lim
Electronics 2026, 15(13), 2785; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics15132785 - 24 Jun 2026
Viewed by 217
Abstract
A low-latency, low-complexity digital demodulator is presented for chirp spread spectrum (CSS)-modulated RF packets targeting low-power IoT wireless systems operating in spectrally congested environments. Conventional CSS receivers rely on fast-fourier transform (FFT)-based synchronization and long preamble sequences, resulting in increased latency and computational [...] Read more.
A low-latency, low-complexity digital demodulator is presented for chirp spread spectrum (CSS)-modulated RF packets targeting low-power IoT wireless systems operating in spectrally congested environments. Conventional CSS receivers rely on fast-fourier transform (FFT)-based synchronization and long preamble sequences, resulting in increased latency and computational complexity. To address these limitations, the proposed receiver employs amplitude-domain synchronization using oversampled sub-chirp windows and maximum likelihood estimation without requiring FFT processing. A digital demodulator co-designed with receiver’s fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) architecture enables rapid sub-chirp generation and fast frequency settling, while compensation techniques mitigate symbol boundary offset (SBO) error due to PLL non-idealities during synchronization. The proposed system achieves packet synchronization within 17.5 preamble symbol cycles while maintaining symbol boundary offset estimation error below ±1%. Simulation results demonstrate a syncword misdetection probability below 10−3 at SNRs of 9 dB and 1 dB without and with 8× repetition, respectively. In the presence of interferences, the receiver tolerates worst-case in-band signal-to-noise ratio (SIR) levels down to −16.2 dB while consuming 877 µW and 830 µW average power at the digital demodulator, and fractional-N PLL, respectively. Implemented in 65 nm CMOS, the proposed architecture occupies 0.195 mm2 active area. Full article
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