Towards Efficient and Secure Cloud Control Systems: Advances, Challenges, and Future Directions

Abstract: Networked Control Systems (NCSs) have been instrumental in realizing fully connected and responsive intelligent environments within the context of real-time virtual control and management. However, traditional NCSs face considerable challenges in handling the vast amounts of data generated by large-scale control applications, particularly in terms of data acquisition, storage, and computational processing. To address these challenges, the emergence of cloud computing and advancements in control theory have empowered the new paradigm known as Cloud Control Systems (CCSs). Recently, CCSs have received substantial attention from industries for their potential properties, such as large-scale data management, complex computations, and data-centric optimized decisions. This study presents an extensive review of recent progress in CCSs spanning over multiple studies published between 2012 and 2025. Specifically, the focus is on providing a taxonomy of the current findings in CCS research, encompassing various perspectives, such as its efficient implementations in industrial automation, security and privacy considerations, and cloud-based control techniques. Each category is examined in depth through selected state-of-the-art analyses of different approaches and contrasting methodologies. Furthermore, we discuss future directions aimed at designing more efficient and practical CCSs. The insights gained from this study can help researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers in their domain for effective CCS design and deployment.