Developing Incident Scenarios Automatically for Simulation-based Training for Emergency Responders (DISASTER)

Given recent man-made and naturally occurring catastrophic events such as the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the effect of Hurricane Katrina, it is apparent that an emergency responder¿s ability to successfully manage and mitigate critical incidents is becoming of increasing importance. Training through live exercises is burdened by limits on availability as well as high costs in financial and personnel resources, restraining the emergency responder¿s ability to prepare effectively. Simulation-based training has been recognized as a key enabling technology to assist in this effort, however, scenario construction remains a time and resource consuming element of simulation-based exercises requiring both the involvement and interactions of the training and software engineering staffs. To address this issue, we propose to design and prototype a system for Developing Incident Scenarios Automatically for Simulation-based Training for Emergency Responders (DISASTER). DISASTER incorporates a scenario development environment that allows training staff to leverage existing scenario templates to construct high-level scenario objectives. A script generation engine then utilizes automated planning systems to flesh out the scenario, producing a rich representative scenario that can then be instantiated within simulation-based training systems for enhanced emergency responder training.