A survey

The emergence of cyber-physical-social systems (CPSS) as a novel paradigm has revolutionized the relationship between humans, computers and the physical environment. In this paper, we survey the advancement of CPSS through cyber-physical systems (CPS), cyber-social ​systems (CSS) and CPSS, as well as related techniques. CPSS are still at their infancy, most recent studies are application-specific and lack of systematic design methodology. To exploit the design methodology for CPSS, we review the existing system-level design methodologies in multiple application domains and further compare their performance characteristics and applicability for CPSS. Finally, we introduce our latest research advancement on system-level design methodology for CPSS and summarize future challenges for designing CPSS. • This paper discusses the relationships between cyber-physical-social computing and ubiquitous computing. • This paper reviews cyber-physical-social systems with their development stages. • The major system-level design methods are reviewed to examine their applicabilities for CPSS design. • This paper presents the latest research advancement on system-level design methodology for CPSS.