Pythagoras: A New Agent-based Simulation System - Northrop ...

Pythagoras: A New Agent-based Simulation System
were close enough to the explosion were detonated using Pythagoras’ cookie-cutter
blast capability.
However, because the aim points were modeled with a vulnerability setting of zero,
they were unharmed by the JDAMs’ effects—so only their color was changed through
Pythagoras’ paintball weapon capability. The aim points were also assigned a nonzero
leadership value. When the aim points’ color changed, the mines and obstacles perceived
the aim points to be their leaders and were assigned a behavior to move away from their
leader to a distance equal to the blast plume of the bomb. When the JDAM impacts
were spaced in time, some obstacles were blown forward along the lane that was
being cleared through the obstacles. They were then blown backward along the same
lane by a subsequent bomb, creating a seesaw effect.
We found that, when the AAVs had poor ability to navigate through the lane created by
the JDAMs, their survivability was even worse than if no JDAMs had been dropped at all,
because the mines that were blown out of the channel combined with mines that were
unaffected, resulting in a much denser minefield than was originally there. Although the
result is intuitive, none of the analysts involved thought of that outcome until it was
observed in Pythagoras. Thus, the lanes must be marked well enough to avoid navigation
errors and must be wide enough to allow safe passage.
Competing for Hearts and Minds. A test scenario demonstrated the use of soft rules.
A set of villagers was created whose colors varied randomly from shades of red to
shades of blue. A set of peacekeepers, armed with short-range, nonlethal weapons, was
sent into the village. The short-range weapons represented leaflets or candy bars. A
villager receiving a leaflet became more blue and friendly to the peacekeepers. Simultaneously,
a charismatic enemy organizer in the town hall was using an indirect-fire, widearea-effect
weapon—a bullhorn. Exposure slowly turned the villagers deeper red. Once
red enough, the villagers perceived the charismatic enemy organizer to be their leader
and moved off to the town hall. (One variant gave them rocks to throw at the peacekeepers,
once they became hostile.)
The peacekeepers were typically able to placate only a limited number of villagers, the
rest going to the town hall to become followers of the charismatic organizer. Occasionally,
however, when all remaining villagers had been pacified, a few peacekeepers would
head to the town hall to attempt to turn some of the followers back into villagers.
Eventually, a steady-state condition was created between the number of villagers and the
number of followers. In one case, the charismatic leader ran out of batteries for his
bullhorn. Soon the peacekeepers moved up to the town hall and pacified all of the villagers.
Once the source of their discontent had been eliminated, pacification was easy.
Summary
The combination of changing color, changing strength of desire or motivation, behaviorchanging
events/actions, and group and individual dynamics—all present in the current
Pythagoras prototype—has already demonstrated that this new capability offers a
powerful, flexible way to represent human behavior in military modeling and simulation.
Soft rules allow each agent (or object, in a traditional legacy simulation) to be created
slightly or greatly different from other agents of the same class. In a combat model, for
example, some troops would be better marksmen, braver, or more obedient than others.
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Technology Review Journal • Spring/Summer 2003