Gun violence and the reckless use of firearms have been a pervasive and growing problem in the United States, especially in low-income communities and communities of underrepresented minorities. The problem has only become exacerbated by increasingly permissive gun control laws, easy access to firearms, and an increasing mistrust of law enforcement that often inhibits reporting by the community.

The Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization (CPS-VO) was founded by NSF in 2010 to: (i)facilitate and foster interaction and exchanges among CPS PIs and their teams; (ii) enable sharing of artifacts and knowledge generated by the projects with the broader engineering and scientific communities; and (iii) facilitate and foster collaboration and information exchange between CPS researchers and industry. During the last five years, the CPS-VO has become the focal point of the CPS community in the US and it has played a significant role in catalyzing CPS research world-wide.