Human models in human-in-the-loop control systems

Understanding the collaboration between physical systems and human is an essential task in man-machine systems. This area of research has been significantly explored in the recent years with the focus on the machine side. Much less attention has been directed to the other side in the man-machine systems, which is the human. The aim of this review is to discuses the major directions and challenges in man-machine systems from control theory perspective with a focus on human modeling and human attributes in the man-machine system. Four directions has been identified; these are: 1) Understanding the attributes and the limitation of the human operator; 2) Categorizing the human-in-the-loop applications and derive generic bounders for each category; 3) Building a realistic application-based model for the human behavior; and 4) Integrating the human models into a formal control synthesis methodology. We surveyed the contribution in each of the four challenges and pointed out the limitation in the proposed ideas. Particular attention is given to the model identification of the human behavior.