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Manual control cybernetics aims to understand and describe how humans control vehicles and devices using mathematical models of human control dynamics. This “cybernetic approach” enables objective and quantitative comparisons of human behavior, and allows a systematic optimization of human control interfaces and training associated with manual control. Current cybernetics theory is primarily based on technology and analysis methods formalized in the 1960s and has shown to be limited in its capability to capture the full breadth of human cognition and control. This paper reviews the current state-of-the-art in our knowledge of human manual control, points out the main fundamental limitations in cybernetics, and proposes a possible roadmap to advance the theory and its applications. Central in this roadmap will be a shift from the current linear time-invariant modeling approach that is only truly valid for …