Innovative Combat Simulation to Craft Tomorrow’s UAV Operational Doctrine

Existing computer combat wargames offer a sophisticated and high fidelity base platform for accurately modeling standard combat scenarios. However, the rapid development of UAV capabilities in terms of sizes, weapons, sensors, communications and flight ability is presenting a new challenge for these simulations. At the same time, the general state of world affairs is changing such that the likelihood and impact of UAV’s in operations is greater than ever before. Thus, the ability to use effective computer modeling and analysis tools in decision-making at all levels is more critical than ever, especially in the development of UAV doctrine, tactics, procurement, design, and integration into force structures and missions. This project will perform research into improving existing wargame software, specifically the title “Point of Attack”, in terms of increasing the fidelity and overall usefulness of the program to a full range of military planners, commanders, analysts and other users. The project’s initial focus will be on enhancing the modeling aspects of the UAV’s themselves, including net-centric considerations and flexibility in allowing for hypothetical future developments. Additionally, investigations will be made into improving the artificial intelligence (AI) abilities acting on behalf of both itself and/or a human player. BENEFIT: The primary benefits of the proposed model and AI improvements will be that existing and future combat simulations and computer wargames will be more accurate in terms of friendly and enemy force actions involving UAV’s, will offer more challenges to players, and will make them more enjoyable to use/play. All of these things will increase the overall employment of the software in whatever capacity it is used, for example as a course of action evaluator on the battlefield, a training tool, an evaluation vehicle for weapons system or doctrine/tactics development, or as an information device to showcase the effectiveness of new technologies. The commercial benefits are that more enjoyable computer games can be published, increasing sales, as well as offering developers the opportunity to easily and quickly adjust computer models for specific UAV situations without having to rewrite significant portions of the AI and modeling code. For example, the same software can model equally well UAV’s used for border monitoring or forest fire detection/fighting as it can military operations with UAV’s against insurgents.