ABSTRACT
At the first glance, looking at the system authority level, the latter application seems to be less demanding. However, looking at the functional complexity, knowledge-based assistance for the human operator implies not only the incorporation and processing of knowledge about the control task and the technical means to be employed but also about the way to achieve the task under all possible constraints and events. Comprehensive knowledge is also needed to be incorporated and processed about the human operator, the human factors and the normative and individual behaviour. The development of these functions is extremely challenging. Nevertheless, experience shows that knowledge-based assistance can also make sense and could be theoretically considered as part of the desirable system knowledge base. Therefore, it should be asked, what knowledge can and will be held ready in foreseeable assistant systems in order to make them a useful device? That is the question which will be dealt with in the following, focusing on the assistant system for the driver of road vehicles, also called electronic co-driver. Road vehicle management and control is the special kind of human process control we are concerned with in this paper. Today, vehicle control is still performed, almost exclusively, by the human driver. This might change considerably in the future.
