Cyber-Physical System (CPS).

An engineered system that integrates sensors, actuators, and computation to monitor and control physical processes, where digital and physical layers are tightly coupled. It belongs to the OT / ICS / IoT category of cybersecurity.

An engineered system that integrates sensors, actuators, and computation to monitor and control physical processes, where digital and physical layers are tightly coupled.

A cyber-physical system (CPS) is an engineered system in which physical processes are tightly coupled with networked computing and control: sensors capture state, software performs analytics or feedback control, and actuators alter the physical world. The category spans ICS, autonomous vehicles, medical devices, smart-grid components, building automation, and robotics. CPS security must address both classic IT threats and physics-aware threats — sensor spoofing (GPS, LiDAR, vibration), false data injection, time-synchronization attacks — because attacks can have direct safety and environmental consequences. Standards bodies such as NIST (CPS Framework), ISO and IEC 62443 increasingly treat CPS as a category that requires combined safety, security, and reliability engineering.

Defences for Cyber-Physical System (CPS) typically combine technical controls and operational practices, as detailed in the full definition above.

Common alternative names include: CPS, Cyber-physical system.