Recently, vast investments have been made worldwide in developing Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) as solutions to key socio-economic challenges. The Internet-of-Things (IoT) has also enjoyed widespread adoption, mostly for its ability to add "sensing" and "actuation" capabilities to existing CPS infrastructures. However, attention must be paid to the impact of IoT protocols on the dependability of CPS infrastructures. We address the issues of CPS dependability by using an epidemic model of the underlying dynamics within the CPS' IoT subsystem (CPS-IoT) and an interference-aware routing reconfiguration. These help to efficiently monitor CPS infrastructure-avoiding routing oscillation, while improving its safety. The contributions of this paper are threefold. Firstly, a CPS orchestration model is proposed that relies upon: (i) Inbound surveillance and outbound actuation to improve dependability and (ii) a novel information diffusion model that uses epidemic states and diffusion sets to produce diffusion patterns across the CPS-IoT. Secondly, the proposed CPS orchestration model is numerically analysed to show its dependability for both sensitive and non-sensitive applications. Finally, a novel interference-aware clustering protocol called "INMP", which enables network reconfiguration through migration of nodes across clusters, is proposed. It is then bench-marked against prominent IoT protocols to assess its impact on the dependability of the CPS.
Keywords: collection tree protocols; cyber physical systems; dependability; epidemic modelling; fourth industrial revolution (4IR); internet-of-things (IoT).