TIME-VARYING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HUMAN OPERATOR IN AN OPEN LOOP

Abstract

This study utilizes the classical theory of timevarying networks, due to Zadeh, to describe randomly time-varying characteristics of the human operator of a control system. The method is applied to the performance of the human operator in tracking tasks without visual feedback. The human is required to track a random appearing target which is displaced as the sum of five nonharmonic sinusoids. The human's transfer function varied randomly in time. The average openloop characteristics show that with no dynamics in cascade with the human, the latter has more difficulty remembering the proper gain than the proper phase which he must apply in order to track accurately. When dynamics are introduced, it is seen that the human tends to forget the effects that the dynamics produced when tracking with feedback. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 30, 1962
Accession Number
AD0275774

Entities

People

  • Pierre R. Belanger

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Closed Loop Systems
  • Control Systems
  • Dynamics
  • Feedback
  • Transfer Functions

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Control Systems Engineering.
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.