Affordable Human-Behavior Modeling

  • Live-fire military training exercises are expensive in terms of personnel, ordnance, fuel, and environmental damage. Virtual training technologies and the Navy and US Marine Corps’ family of tactical decision making simulations (TDSs) provide training tools for trainees to plan and execute operational plans in a force-on-force environment and through after action review, gain feedback about the effectiveness of their planning and decision making. However, TDSs require the participation and coordination of instructors (experts) and many human players because the capability for automatically controlling a realistic, competent opposing force is relatively non-existent. Furthermore, tactical decision making simulations are not designed to address more strategic decision making. Thus, the inability of current technology to provide a competitive, realistic, opposing force compromises the goal of inexpensive, anytime, anywhere training, especially for strategic decision making.
  • The goal of this project is to develop a computational approach to developing effective training systems for virtual simulation environments. Our proposed solution is to develop intelligent, autonomous controllers that drive the behavior of each boat in the virtual training environment. To increase the system’s efficiency we provide a mechanism for creating such controllers, from the demonstration of a navigation expert, using a simple programming interface. In addition, our approach deals with two significant and related challenges: the realism of behavior exhibited by the automated boats and their real-time response to changes in the environment.
  • Virtual At Sea Training, Office of Naval Research, Co-PI: Monica Nicolescu (PI: Sushil Louis, Co-PI: Sergiu Dascalu), Amount: $416,584, October 1, 2005 - September 30, 2008.
  • Adaptive Intelligent Swarms for VAST-COVE: Virtual Training of Conning Officers in Ship Self Defense Against Small Boats, Office of Naval Research, Co-PI (PI: Sushil Louis), Amount: $220,241, July 1, 2004 - June 30, 2006.