Cybermatics: Cyber–physical–social–thinking hyperspace based science and technology

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an attractive system paradigm, in which physical perceptions, cyber interactions, social correlations, and even cognitive thinking can be intertwined in the ubiquitous things’ interconnections. It realizes a perfect integration of a new cyber–physical–social–thinking (CPST) hyperspace, which has profound implications for the future IoT. In this article, a novel concept Cybermatics is put forward as a broader vision of the IoT (called hyper IoT) to address science and technology issues in the heterogeneous CPST hyperspace. This article covers a broaden research field and presents a preliminary study focusing on its three main features (i.e., interconnection, intelligence, and greenness). Concretely, interconnected Cybermatics refers to the variants of Internet of anything, such as physical objects, cyber services, social people, and human thinking; intelligent Cybermatics considers the cyber–physical–social–thinking computing to provide algorithmic support for system infrastructures; green Cybermatics addresses energy issues to ensure efficient communications and networking. Finally, open challenging science and technology issues are discussed in the field of Cybermatics.