Submarine Automated Simulation (SubAutoSim)

The Navy has issued a challenge to develop an interactive simulation environment that will model tactical and environmental entities in real time and enable goal-directed scenario generation. This will serve the needs of a myriad of applications, such as system integration, testing, certification, training, rehearsal, and life-cycle support. The current methodology of generating pre-planned “canned” scenarios does not provide the testing personnel or training teams with the robustness and flexibility needed to optimize their objectives. Newly emerging technologies, such as intelligent agent-based software components, enable the creation of high fidelity models that can be controlled “on the fly.” Real-time control of any of the tactical entity-impacting variables, from sea state or threat submarine depth, will result in an immediate change in the stimulation level to reflect the changing simulated tactical or environmental situation. 21st Century Systems, Incorporated (21CSI) is pleased to propose to continue its research and development of the Submarine Automated Simulation (SubAutoSim). SubAutoSim is an intelligent agent-based software architecture that will enable the assignment of constraints and/or objectives for automated creation and control of simulated entities during a training or test scenario in order to improve realism for systems development and training activities. BENEFITS: The Modeling and Simulation community is making great progress in developing ever more complex virtual environments for training, testing, gaming, designing, rehearsing and planning, to name a few. Many of these commercial M&S systems work with scenarios that have an input from an unpredictable human source. In these cases, the requirement for agent-based simulation controls that can optimize the simulation for the unfolding situation would certainly be of great value. SubAutoSim’s agent-based technology being development for the Submarine OBTT Master Controller will clearly have its initial applications in the back fit submarines employing the BQQ-10 Sonar system, of which OBTT is resident. The technology will be equally useful in the various submarine attack centers and simulators. As the fleet operators become more familiar with the submarine-based applications and its training benefits, it is expected that the other warfare communities will introduce the technologies into their afloat training products and systems. While the specific agents discussed in this Phase II are submarine training centric and exclusively conceived for Naval training scenarios, the technology that unburdens the training system operators and enhances training effectiveness are universal and clearly has opportunities to transition with other military organizations. The leveraging of the 21CSI AEDGE® open agent architecture will allow rapid prototyping of warfare specific training applications and agents at a fraction of the development cost that others may require. In general, the SubAutoSim concept adds intelligence and more mission fidelity to a simulation/stimulation training system. It fills the gap between qualification training and mission training/rehearsal. This allows the training to be enhanced from a mere “driving the boat” simulator to an intelligent synthetic mission environment. The concept can be applied to any number of military, government, and civilian domains. Beyond submarines, the application of SubAutoSim-like concepts can be applied to a flight simulator to create a synthetic mission environment for the aviator. Beyond mere “stick-and-rudder” training, the aviator can train and rehearse in a variety of missions. In the commercial realm, transportation, power, and manufacturing operations are likely domains to apply the SubAutoSim-like concepts to create more mission-oriented training.