Revolutionizing industries through cyber-physical systems: a systematic review

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have emerged as a core enabling paradigm for intelligent, interconnected, and automated systems across industrial and societal domains. With the rapid convergence of CPS with technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, and edge computing, there is a growing need for a structured and up-to-date synthesis of CPS research. This study aims to systematically review CPS literature to consolidate existing knowledge, analyze architectural components, and identify emerging trends and research gaps. A systematic literature review was conducted using Scopus database. Articles and conference papers published between 2015 and 2025 were selected based on PRISMA inclusion and exclusion criteria. The selected studies were analyzed to examine CPS evolution, core architectural layers, application domains, enabling technologies, and associated challenges. The review reveals that CPS architectures are commonly structured around sensing, communication, computation, and control layers, though their implementation varies significantly across application domains. CPS applications have expanded rapidly in smart cities, healthcare, industrial automation, energy systems, agriculture, transportation, and smart environments. The integration of CPS with IoT, IIoT, edge computing, artificial intelligence, and digital twins has enhanced real-time decision-making and system autonomy. However, challenges related to interoperability, scalability, security, real-world validation, and sustainability persist. This study provides a comprehensive and cross-domain systematic synthesis of CPS research, moving beyond domain-specific narratives to offer architectural comparison, integrative analysis, and identification of critical research gaps. The findings support researchers and practitioners in understanding current CPS developments and guide future research toward robust, secure, and sustainable CPS-enabled systems.