Human-Centric and Socio-Technical Design Support for Cyber-Physical Systems: A Systematic Investigation

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), in which computation and physical processes converge, have found application in many domains and will only gain further importance. Faced with such developments, recent research emphasized the need to not lose sight of affected humans. Two important notions to that respect are human-centric and socio-technical CPS. Moving towards such a vision poses challenges concerning how CPS design should best be done. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review to identify and qualitatively evaluate CPS design support showing human-centric and/or socio-technical characteristics, focusing on its embedding into design processes. We first conceptualized the two terms, trying to account for conceptual ambiguity, and then characterized each identified work. We recognized the central role of interactions between human and machine components for both paradigms, with design activities targeting different levels of abstraction. Positive reports on active involvement of affected humans indicated future research potential. Investigated concepts and ideas relating to CPS architectures that enable design support showed the need to properly address inherent CPS complexity. We also found a need to focus validation activities on achieved outcomes for targeted design support user groups as well as people affected by the CPS.