Project Overview  

Background 

“The value of the Modelling and Simulation (M&S) is not the technology used for the simulation, but the lessons learned from its outcome.”  SCE was recently awarded a research grant by the Defence Science Technology Agency to support a project, led by Assoc Prof Cai Wentong, to create a 3D isometric, real-time strategy based simulation for handling and managing crowds in military operations.  This generic crowd modelling and simulation system will integrate computer graphics and animation, game AI as well as distributed simulation technologies. 

Introduction

Crowd control becomes increasingly important in urbanized military operations such as peace keeping, riot control, disaster management, emergency evacuation, and rescue operations.  Given the military challenges and risks imposed by the crowds, there is an urgent need to develop a system for military personnel to get prepared for handling various situations, to formulate strategies and answer “what-if” scenarios, and to evaluate hundreds of contingency plans so as to prioritize resources and time during an operation.  One way to do so is to create a synthetic virtual environment and use Modelling & Simulation (M&S) techniques to emulate urbanized military operations (see Crowd Control in Figure 1 below). Crowd modelling and simulation is an essential component of such an environment.

                                                        Figure 1. Crowd Control   

Project Objectives

This project aims to develop a generic system for CrOwd Simulation for Military Operations (COSMOS) with the integration of game AI, distributed simulation technologies, and computer graphics and animation (see System Architecture in Figure 2 below). 

                                                         Figure 2. System Architecture 

The objectives of project are:

• To investigate and develop a behaviour model for individual characters and the crowd: Behavior model is a key component in crowd modelling and simulation.  A hierarchy behaviour model will be developed.  How individual and crowd behaviour under normal and panic situation can be represented will be investigated, and how the proposed behaviour model can be applied in an agent-based simulation will be also studied.  Theoretical psychological models and past cases/experiences will be referenced in the development of the behaviour representations and cognitive models.

• To develop a set of ontology and knowledge repositories for crowd modelling and simulation: Ontology consists of concepts and relations.  It is necessary to define a common vocabulary for various components in the system to exchange, interpret and process information.  Particularly, the ontology and knowledge repositories will make semantics-based reasoning possible.

• To develop an extensible, reconfigurable and scalable system architecture for crowd modelling and simulation: The system to be developed should be interoperable with the existing military applications via HLA/RTI.  It should be also extensible to incorporate new behaviour models and reconfigurable to simulate more complex scenarios.  In addition, the system architecture should be also scalable to handle large virtual environments with a huge number of simulated entities.

• To develop mechanisms to support symbiotic crowd simulation: With the support of other components in the COSMOS, key techniques to support the dynamic injection of changes in the real operations environment (e.g., crowd) into the simulation will be developed.  This will enable the decision-makers to evaluate different plans and tactics, and react quickly and accurately to the changing operations environment.

• To construct a realistic virtual environment that enriches trainees’ experiences: To support the visualization and animation needs in the crowd simulation, existing techniques and relevant COTS packages will be evaluated.  The research will focus on the tools and techniques to facilitate rapid and automated construction process of urban environments.