AbstractThis article proposes a behavioral control formalism to explain situations often encountered in complex sensor/data fusion (eventually decentralized) information acquisition, command and control systems, it involves making the input‐output relations of each actor involved in the fusion process conditional on selected behavioral classes, with error creation and repair options. For each behavioral class, the input‐output relations are modified by concurrent behavioral rules, while the class itself has visible and hidden attributes. A formalism is also given for interactions between actors. This approach allows to describe and analyze such situations as: indirect observations, ambiguous controls, hysterisis, deadlocks, initiation of attention mechanisms. Finally, the engineering use of this approach is illustrated by three concrete designs involving humans operating indoors.