"Cyber-Physical Systems: From Sustainable Design to Zero Discharge Manufacturing"

Bernadetta Kwintiana Ane

Institute of Computer-aided Product Development Systems
Universitaet Stuttgart, Germany

Abstract :

"Pollution has no ideology or borders, and the sky is something all human beings have to share and live with."  Rapid industrialization has brought more cars, more factories, and more people to burn coal and wood for industrial purposes. A new study has discovered a range of airborne particles and pollutants from combustion (e.g., woodfires, cars, and factories), biomass burning and industrial processes with incomplete burning creating a layer of air pollution that recurrently covers parts of South Asia, called the "Asian brown cloud". The cloud can affect climate thousands of kilometers away, warming the United States by up to 0.4°C by 2024, while cooling other countries.

Since earthly damage in one place affects the rest parts of the world, far beyond the borders of offending nations, therefore, this becomes an issue that must take global cooperation in order to solve. Cyber-Physical Systems is one of the solutions. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is a new generation of engineered systems featuring a tight integration of physical systems and processes with networked computing. CPS ranges from mini-scale to large-scale. Since computer-augmented devices are ubiquitous, CPS becomes a huge source of economic leverage and has extraordinary significance for the future of the industry.  CleanTech (i.e., clean technology) as a part of CPS lies at the heart of global climate change efforts. Currently, the innovative companies may achieve ‘sustainable design' through thoughtful designs to completely eliminate negative environmental impacts and, at the same time, achieve zero energy and ‘zero discharge operations' in which a manufacturing plant produces all of its own energy and recycles materials so that it puts no waste into the environment