The Rise of Cyber Physical Human Systems

at the crossroads of domain, data and data sciences

Speaker: Dr. Chandrakant D. Patel

HP Chief Engineer and Senior Fellow, and IEEE Fellow

Abstract: 19^th and early 20^th century engineering was about the industrialization of physical and electro-mechanical systems like the steam engine and the utility grid. The latter half of the 20^th century has been about information management, cyber systems and the Internet. The 21^st century is about the integration of the two and the proliferation of cyber-physical systems (CPS) that address the challenges stemming from global social, economic and ecological trends such as resource constraints, demographic shifts, human capital constraints. Furthermore, the lack of human capital - from specialized surgeons to  people with depth in running city scale infrastructures such as power plants - will give rise to cyber-physical-human systems. These human integrated physical solutions will be devised to achieve the scale necessary to meet the demand side needs. Indeed, the burden of negative externalities, from pandemics to environmental issues, is accelerating the need for cyber physical human systems.

The solutions of the cyber physical human era are systemic instantiations of operating technologies (OT) and information technologies (IT) that function at the intersection of domain theories, data organization and data science. Data science advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are intertwined with advances in physical sciences resulting in complex cyber physical systems.

The 21^st century cyber physical contributors must have depth in engineering fundamentals of the machine age and breadth in information sciences of the cyber age. This can be achieved through a variety of learning paths such as dual degrees, continuing education and “learn by doing” projects focused on building cyber physical OT+IT integrated systems to become “T” shaped systems contributors.

Bio: Dr. Chandrakant Patel is HP’s Chief Engineer and Senior Fellow. He has led HP in delivering innovations in chips, systems, data centers, storage, networking, print engines and software platforms. Chandrakant is a pioneer in thermal and energy management in data centers, and in application of the information technology to drive available energy management at city scales. His current technical interests are focused on 21st century cyber physical systems such as HP’s 3D Print Engines.

Chandrakant is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), holds 153 patents, and has published more than 150 technical papers. An advocate of the return to fundamentals, he has served as an adjunct faculty in engineering at Chabot College, U.C. Berkeley Extension, San Jose State University and Santa Clara University. In 2014, Chandrakant was inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. In 2018, he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering.