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Representation of Human Behavior in Military Simulations Vidar Engmo Master of Science in Communication Technology Submission date: July 2008 Supervisor: Lill Kristiansen, ITEM Co-supervisor: Karsten Bråthen, Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Telematics Problem Description A challenge in military simulations is to include human factors and behavior. One way of avoiding this problem is to use real time human-in-the-loop simulations, however when simulating larger operations this requires too much resources in terms of time and personnel. Lately some frameworks are made for computer generated forces or CGF. These frameworks covers modeling of physical systems in a good way, but human behavior can be a problem. Within the military also other frameworks are created for modeling and simulating human behavior, some of these frameworks are built on cognitive theories. Also within civil industry (such as games) there are interests in these frameworks for representing human behavior. The candidate shall describe existing frameworks for human behavior, and build a demonstrator in a chosen framework. The candidate must also do a literature survey of theories for human behavior in military operations, and describe their features and limitations. Assignment given: 04. February 2008 Supervisor: Lill Kristiansen, ITEM MASTER THESIS VIDAR ENGMO 30.07.2008 Preface “Why waste time on a summer vacation, when you can spend the time on writing your master thesis!” The thought crawled in my head around midnight a Saturday evening in July, when I was still hammering away on my keyboard. What can I say? I just like it, Vidar Engmo. I would like to thank my father and mother for giving me the courage to always seek new challenges and believe in myself. I would like to thank the officers at the Norwegian Army Transformation and Doctrine Command for all the help regarding the development of the demonstration software. My visit to Rena Camp and the demonstration of the Combined Combat Simulator gave me valuable inputs on how to create simple but effective behavior in Human-in-the-Loop simulations. I would like to thank my professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Prof. Lill Kristiansen for the guidance and valuable feedback during the period of writing this master thesis. Finally I would like to thank my teaching supervisors, researchers Karsten Braathen and Odd-Martin Staal, at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment for always looking out for my best interests and providing me with guidance, software and advice on how to solve the task of writing the master thesis. Vidar Engmo Wednesday, July 30, 2008 I | P a g e MASTER THESIS VIDAR ENGMO 30.07.2008 Abstract The purpose of this master thesis was to investigate the psychological and computational basis for human behavior representation (HBR) in military simulations and identify problem areas of existent software agent frameworks that provide computer generated forces (CGF) with human like cognitive abilities. The master thesis identifies psychological properties that influence human cognition in an operational environment through a theoretical study of operational and cognitive psychology. The psychological properties of human cognition are then connected to artificial intelligence through a theoretical study of agents and multi-agent systems and form the foundation for identifying general HBR properties. The HBR properties are used as evaluation markers that constitute the basis for constructing an evaluation of relevant agent frameworks thereby visualizing their strengths and weaknesses. The problem areas of incorporating artificial intelligence into CGF are further concretized by the development of a demonstrator that interacts with a synthetic environment. The demonstrator is an implementation of a tank platoon in the agent framework Jadex. The synthetic environment is provided by VR-Forces which is a product by MÄK technologies. The thesis makes a distinction between the conceptual structure of agent frameworks and their actual implementation. According to this master thesis it is the output of the agent framework that is the most important feature not how the output came into being. Producing the correct output requires the selection of the correct tools for the job. The selection of an agent framework should be taken on the background of an evaluation of the simulation requirements. A large portion of the development time is consumed by the development of application and communication interfaces. The problem is a result of lacking standardization and that most cognitive agent frameworks are experimental in nature. In addition the artificial intelligence (AI) in such simulations is often dived into levels, where the synthetic environment takes care of low-level AI and the agent framework the high-level AI. Tight synchronization between low and high-level AI is important if one wishes to create sensible behavior. The purpose of an agent framework in conjunction with CGF is thereby ensuring rapid development and testing of behavior models. III | P a g e MASTER THESIS VIDAR ENGMO 30.07.2008 Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................................... I Abstract .............................................................................................................................................III Table of Contents............................................................................................................................... V List of Figures .....................................................................................................................................IX List of Tables .................................................................................................................................... XIII Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. XV Chapter 1 Introduction........................................................................................................................1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Problem Description.................................................................................................................. 1 1.3 Scope ........................................................................................................................................ 2 1.4 Structure ................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 2 The Military Domain ...........................................................................................................7 2.1 Military Levels of Command ...................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Structural Composition of a Military Force ................................................................................ 8 2.3 Military Operations ................................................................................................................... 9 2.4 Command and Control ............................................................................................................ 10 2.5 Network Based Defense .......................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 3 Background Theory ........................................................................................................... 13 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 13 3.2 Operational Psychology ........................................................................................................... 15 3.3 Artificial Intelligence................................................................................................................ 32 3.4 Distributed Artificial Intelligence ............................................................................................. 44 Chapter 4 Human Behavior Representation ...................................................................................... 47 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 47 4.2 Representing Human Behavior in Synthetic Environments....................................................... 49 4.3 Identification of HBR properties .............................................................................................. 50 4.4 Preliminary Evaluation of Agent Architectures ......................................................................... 63 4.5 Performance Moderator functions .......................................................................................... 66 4.6 Cognitive Architectures ........................................................................................................... 70 4.7 BDI Architecture ...................................................................................................................... 82 V | P a g e MASTER THESIS VIDAR ENGMO 30.07.2008 Chapter 5 Simulation Frameworks ...................................................................................................