Project Albert M

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Project AlbertMS Review 13 November 2002

• Gary Horne
• Sarah Johnson

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Project Albert Summary

• Chartered by Congress with the vision to
  address questions
• of military decision-makers not supported by
  traditional methods
• Leverages High Performance Computing in
  innovative ways
• Stresses interdisciplinary, joint, and
  coalition collaboration
• Supports rapid investigation of a wide range of
  alternatives through distillation models and data
  farming methods
• Applications include efforts in the areas of
  surf zone obstacles,
• Command and Control, and enhanced blast weapons

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Distillations

• Distillation Models Agent-based model that is
  intuitive, transparent, transportable, and
  farmable.
• Agents autonomous, reactive, motivated,
  adaptive, mobile, proactive, and they
  communicate.
• A bottom up distillation of the essence of a
  question
• Quick implementation - less than a few hours

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What Are Distillations?

• A distillation is a bottom-up abstraction of the
  essence of a situation.
• Characteristics of a distillation?
• Can handle nonlinearities, binary events,
  sensitivity to initial conditions, emergence
• Adaptable to massively parallel machines
• Can create data needed for analysis
• Shows promise to capture intangibles and model
  coevolving landscapes
• Good for modeling complex adaptive systems
• And enhances our intuition

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Which Distillations Does Project Albert Use?

• ISAAC
• Mana
• Socrates
• Pythagoras

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ISAAC
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ISAAC Interfaces

• SELECT RUN OPTION
• 1 Run ISAAC engine with
  new input
• 2 Playback old run
• 3 Quit
• ?1
• SPECIFY FORM OF INPUT
• 1 Prompt from screen
• 2 Read from datafile
• ?2
• File name ?ISAAC.DAT
• SPECIFY FORM OF OUTPUT
• 1 Terminal
• 2 File
• 3 Both
• ?3

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ISAAC Features

• Physical Characteristics
• Movement range, sensor range, fire range,
  communications range
• Personality Traits
• Internal value system which weights movement
  toward or away from same/opposing goal,
  alive/injured friendly/enemy agents as applied to
  all other info used by agent to choose a move
• Used to rank set of possible moves an agent can
  choose to take during current time step
• Battlefield
• Two-dimensional lattice of discrete sites
• Agent States
• Alive, injured, dead

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ISAAC Features

• Movement
• Next move based on best matching the agents
  personality
• Group Sociological Factors
• Constraints such as Advance, Cluster, Combat
  included
• Advance toward enemy goal if of friendly agents
  exceeds defined threshold
• Cluster stop moving toward surrounding friendly
  agents if exceeds defined threshold
• Combat move toward enemy if difference between
  friendly/enemy agents exceeds defined threshold
• Scenario Generation
• Text file
• On-screen manipulation
• Data Farming
• Web Interface to MHPCC

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Mana
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Mana Interfaces
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Mana Features

• Originated by the Defence Technology Agency
  (DTA), New Zealand
• Parameters/personality traits/rules defined
  similarly to the ISAAC distillation, if not the
  same for some variables
• Event-Driven Personalities
• Triggering events such as squad shot at, squat
  taken shot, reached way point which cause a
  change in personality weight vector for a
  specified length of time before reverting back to
  the default personality or until another event
  triggers another personality type
• Personality traits defined for each personality
  state
• Internal value system which weights movement
  toward or away from waypoints, alive/injured
  friendly/enemy agents as applied to all other
  info used by agent to choose a move
• Physical
• Speed, sensor range, fire range, stealth, max
  targets to engage - defined for each personality
  state
• Situational Awareness
• Squad-based memory of enemy contacts
• Terrain Map
• Roads that agents can follow, impassable terrain
  objects
• Way Points
• Establish set of points to follow (interim
  goals), not just an ultimate goal

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Mana Features

• Group Sociological Factors
• Unit Cohesion, Aggression
• Advance toward enemy goal if of friendly
  agents exceeds defined threshold
• Cluster stop moving toward surrounding friendly
  agents if exceeds defined threshold
• Combat move toward enemy if difference between
  friendly/enemy agents exceeds defined threshold
• Defined for each personality state
• Battlespace
• Situational awareness map - agents communicate
  enemy positions to other squads outside the local
  area
• HQ squad sends info in their collective sensor
  range to the SA map where other squads of the
  same allegiance can view the information
• Edited/created using paint program (create
  object/obstacle blocks) without specifying
  coordinates. Agents recognize blocks as visible
  while program executes
• Can also import maps into paint - can draw roads
  for agents to follow
• Scenario Generation
• Scenario text description opens upon execution of
  the model - provides background information of
  scenario for new users of that file
• Text file with corresponding map file
• On-screen manipulation using previously created
  scenario
• Data Farming
• Gilgamesh Cluster

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Socrates
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Socrates Interfaces
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Socrates Features

• Improvements under development
• Methodology
• Values-driven behaviors
• Command hierarchy
• Commander, Leader, Grunt
• Agents
• sensors, weapons (lethal/non-lethal), movement,
  communications, sentiments, inculcation,
  accommodation
• personality defined by list of decisions (based
  on level of command)
• Battlefield
• Obstacles (impede movement only)
• Data Farming Support
• Inputs/Scenario XML-based

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Pythagoras
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Pythagoras Interfaces
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Pythagoras Features

• Improvements under development
• Methodology
• Soft Decision Rules
• Agents
• sensors, weapons (lethal/non-lethal
  direct/indirect), movement desires, triggers
• Sidedness
• multiple sides possible based upon RGB color
  scale
• sides change dynamically throughout scenario
  execution
• affiliations categorized by unit, friendly,
  neutral, enemy
• Battlefield
• Base terrain properties of mobility, concealment,
  protection, height
• Terrain features with same property categories
  can overlay base
• Data Farming Support
• Inputs/Scenario XML-based

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Distillation Models Status
ISAAC

Mana

Development completed

Newer versions under development by


First distillation developed for Marine Corps
Defence Technology Agency, New Zealand to


Batch processing/Data Farming mode is ready
expand features, parameters,
MOEs, batch


and in use Web interface available
processing

Limited set of questions/scenarios to explore

Batch processing/Data Farming mode is


Continued use is includes scenario setup,
available on
Gilgamesh Cluster in


execution, and translation into other
development for MHPCC Requires email
models/validation against other models
submission
Socrates

Pythagoras
Developed by L-3 Communications Analytics
Developed by TRW under contract with




under contract with Project Albert
Project Albert
Data farming sessions available at MHPCC
Version 1 delivered




Web interface available
Data farming sessions available at MHPCC


Prioritization and development of additional
Web interface available


features, visualization tools for result analysis,
Prioritization and development of additional


user interfaces for scenario creation and initial
features in progress
scenario testing is in progress