Capturing Performance in Cyber Human Supervisory Control

Abstract

Modern cyber operations require operators to maintain supervisory control of remote computer agents. A current operational concern is the number of agents an operator can control at once. This type of task resonates with similar Human Supervisory Control (HSC) research that has been conducted in environments such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle operations. Within the relevant literature, there has been limited discussion of cyber-HSC, and no available experimental research. In this paper, we present an initial exploration cyber-HSC. Using the BOARD 1.5 Simulation, we manipulated the number of autonomous assets accessible to a human operator. We expected that as the number of autonomous agents available increased, we would observe concomitant changes in human performance and cognition.However, our results indicated that participants’ overall span-of-control did not vary with additional agents. Our findings highlight the need for continued research on issues of supervisory control within cyber operations.