Co-simulation of cyber physical systems with HMI for human in the loop investigations

The development of safety critical Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is highly dependent on human interaction and cognitive assessment. Despite this dependency, the human in the loop is seldom an integrated part of CPS development or tool chain. In this paper we propose a hybrid co-simulation environment, where hardware, software and models can be interconnected, making it possible to connect a human machine interface with a software representation of a control system and thermodynamic engine models. Scenarios that require user interaction can be formulated and propagate from engine physics through the control system to the engine operator. The environment makes it possible to investigate human interaction during system development and gain more quantitative and evidence based data for designing safety critical CPS with human-machine interaction.