Talk 2

Abstract: Across many sectors, ranging from manufacturing to healthcare to the military theater, there is growing interest in the potential impact of automation that is truly collaborative with humans. Human interactions with autonomous systems can be both physical and social, with the latter being increasingly critical for achieving desired performance objectives. In fact, it is well-established that cognitive factors, such as a human’s mental workload, trust, or selfconfidence, play a substantial role in the human’s decision to rely on an autonomous system. However, building mathematical, control-oriented models of human cognition or decisionmaking is a major challenge. This talk will first review the state-of-the-art in mathematical modeling of human cognitive dynamics, with an emphasis on control-oriented methods that can enable model-based control design. Then, the use of specific modeling and estimation techniques for cognitive state estimation will be employed to close the loop between human and machine and demonstrate how calibration of one or more cognitive states improves performance outcomes over a baseline approach. The talk will conclude with a forward look at open challenges that the controls community must tackle in this space.

Bio: Dr. Neera Jain is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering and a faculty member in the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories at Purdue University. She directs the Jain Research Laboratory with the aim of advancing technologies that will have a lasting impact on society through a systems-based approach, grounded in dynamic modeling and control theory. A major thrust of her research is the design of human-aware automation through controloriented modeling of human cognition. A second major research thrust is optimal design and control of complex energy systems. Dr. Jain earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009 and 2013, respectively. She earned her S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. Dr. Jain and her research have been featured in NPR and Axios. As a contributor for Forbes.com, she wrote on the topic of human interaction with automation and its importance in society. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Research Laboratory, Office of Naval Research, and private industry.