Human-Computer Cooperative Problem Solving in Satellite Ground Control

In the supervisory control of highly automated dynamic systems, the human operator is responsible for monitoring system state and compensating for system failures. Increasingly, the human operator interacts with one or more knowledge-based (e.g., expert) systems that assume responsibility for a portion of the supervisory control task. Thus, supervisory control is shared by both human and machine agent(s). To date, however, there is little research addressing the interaction of human and knowledge-based machine agents in supervisory control. This paper describes research that explores issues in the design of the cooperative human-machine interaction in the control of a complex dynamic system. The paper presents a set of prescriptive principles that define the human-computer interaction in supervisory control systems. In addition, the paper summarizes a case study of a NASA satellite ground control system in which human operators work with an expert system. The prescriptive principles and case study results form the basis of an architecture for cooperative problem solving for real-time control of dynamic systems.