Review on Testing of Cyber Physical Systems: Methods and Testbeds

TLDR

Cyber‑physical systems are rapidly expanding in scale, complexity, and heterogeneity, yet systematic testing to ensure high reliability remains a major challenge. This review aims to systematically summarize existing CPS testing methods and technologies to inspire more efficient testing approaches. The authors examine ten testing aspects—including paradigms, technologies, and non‑functional tests—detail testbed infrastructures, and discuss challenges and future research directions. Future CPS testing should integrate multiple paradigms and emerging technologies such as IoT, big data, cloud computing, and AI for multi‑objective performance.

Abstract

Cyber physical systems (CPSs) are rapidly developing, with increasing scale, complexity, and heterogeneity. However, testing CPSs systematically to ensure that they operate with high reliability remains a big challenge. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize existing works and technologies systematically, with the aim of inspiring new inventions for more efficient CPS testing. Accordingly, this paper first investigated the advances in CPS testing methods from ten aspects, including different testing paradigms, technologies, and some non-functional testing methods (including security testing, robust testing, and fragility testing). Then, we further elaborate on the infrastructures of CPS testbeds from the perspectives of their architecture and the corresponding function analyses. Finally, challenges and future research directions are identified and discussed. It can be concluded that future CPS testing should focus more on the combination of different paradigms and technologies for multi-objective by integrating more emerging cutting-edge technologies such as Internet of things, big data, cloud computing, and AI.