Human Supervisory Control of Automated Systems
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this graduate-level course on how humans and automated systems share control in complex operations. Topics include the assignment of roles and authority between people and machines, tradeoffs between direct control and monitoring, human intervention in automatic processes, performance and optimization of joint human-machine systems, enhanced interface design, decision aiding, and automated alerting. Applications are drawn from aerospace, industrial, and transportation settings, giving the material a practical grounding in real operational environments. The course includes lecture notes and readings covering the engineering and human factors sides of supervisory control, aimed at students designing or analyzing systems where people oversee automation rather than operate it directly. Materials are freely available through MIT OpenCourseWare, with no certificate offered.