Equipped-human Reference Architecture

The successful application of most modern complex systems depends on human components as part of their system architectures. While the complexity of these systems is further complicated due to those human elements, most of these complex system designs may still be well-engineered using traditional systems engineering approaches and methodologies. Reference architectures (RA) are applied in this paper to demonstrate their use for defining systems that are human centered. That is, systems where the human is not the proverbial cog in the architecture rather where the human is the core emphasis of the design.This paper proposes a construct for Equipped-Human Reference Architecture (EHRA) as a useful systems engineering tool for addressing the complexity inherent in developing human centric systems. We assert that well conceived and constructed EHRA could provide a reusable and evolving set of architecture guidelines and constraints that define the complete equipped-human design space. Additionally, well-structured EHRA should be extensible to provide usable systems engineering design tools in order to aid equipped-human systems (EHS) developers when they are designing and evolving specific EHS solution architectures.