Human-Hardware-in-the-Loop simulations for systemic resilience assessment in cyber-socio-technical systems

Modern industrial systems require updated safety management approaches, as the tight interplay between cyber-physical, human, and organizational factors has driven their processes toward increasing complexity. In addition to dealing with known risks, managing system resilience acquires great value to address complex behaviours pragmatically. This manuscript starts from the System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) as a modelling initiative for such complexity. The STAMP can be natively integrated with simulation-based approaches, which however fail to realistically represent human behaviours and their influence on the system performance. To overcome this limitation, this research proposes a Human-Hardware-in-the-Loop (HHIL) modelling and simulation framework aimed at supporting a more realistic and comprehensive assessment of systemic resilience. The approach is tested on an experimental oil and gas plant experiencing cyber-attacks, where two personas of operators (experts and novices) work. The obtained results provide a means to quantitatively assess how variations in operators’ behaviours impact the overall system performance, offering insights into how resilience should be understood and implemented in complex socio-technical systems at large.