Experimentation
Prior to embarking on any defence programme, modelling simulation and experimentation offers defence organisations the flexibility to testbed new operation concepts, tactics, procedures and techniques.
Test assumptions, gain clarity on the way forward, and be confident in your technology applications of choice.
We offer our customers the following services to support your experimentation journey:
- Liaise with your organisation, end users and industry
- Experiment conceptualisation, overseeing and reporting
- Facilitate any desired user participation in the experiments
Our Success Stories
University of Alabama
Militaries are developing swarms of autonomous robotic Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to conduct missions that are too hazardous for human crews or expensive robotic systems. Using MAK's VR-Forces CGF, researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) are conducting experiments to determine if a simulated model of a robot swarm can improve military swarm tactics.
Robot swarms (groups of robots acting autonomously to achieve a common goal) conduct complex missions using many simple, inexpensive robots. Defined by basic rules that govern interactions between the robots in the swarm and environmental influences, the swarm uses tactics and control schemes to generate coordination and emergent behavior through swarm intelligence.
Because operational robot swarms are not yet available in the real world, doctrine developers use constructive entity-level combat models, like MAK's VR-Forces, to devise employment tactics for robot swarms. Here's how UAH is doing it.
UAH's Robot Swarm Experiments Using VR-Forces
Over the last two years, UAH researchers Dr. Mikel Petty and Dr. Kevin Foster researched models of swarm robots as a part of Dr. Foster's dissertation work. The research included three integrated efforts:
- Use Design of Experiments (DoE) methods and retrodiction of a historical battle to calibrate model parameter settings and estimate the tactical impact of a simple robot swarm in VR-Forces – we'll discuss this effort below.
- Develop an autonomous robot swarm model in VR-Forces
- Improve the tactical performance of the swarm using a genetic algorithm implemented with VR-Forces Lua scripts
The rest of this blog post covers the first effort listed above. The results were published in the July 2021 issue of the Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, titled "Estimating the tactical impact of robot swarms using a semi-automated forces system and design of experiments methods." The combat model was calibrated using retroactive prediction, or ''retrodiction,'' a method that involves simulating a historical battle and comparing the simulation results to the battle's historical outcome. For this experiment, the researchers used the Battle of 73 Easting as the historical battle to simulate in VR-Forces. The calibrated combat model was then used to estimate the tactical impact of a notional Iraqi robot swarm conducting reconnaissance and surveillance in that battle.
The Battle of 73 Easting, which was influential in the overall outcome of the 1991 Gulf War, was fought on 26 February 1991 in featureless desert terrain near the Iraq–Kuwait border. It was fought between the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (2ACR) of the United States Army and two brigades of the Tawakalna Division of the Iraqi Republican Guard. An extensive analysis of the battlefield and interviews with participants in the weeks after the Battle of 73 Easting provided the information needed to create and validate a VR-Forces model of the battle.
The Design of Experiments methods produced estimates of the interaction of the robot swarm's effect with the technologies of the combatants' weapon systems. Simulation trials and statistical analysis showed that the tactical benefits of an Iraqi robot swarm were overshadowed by the advantage provided by the US forces' thermal sights. However, additional trials indicated that if both sides had been equipped with optical sights only, the early warning provided to the Iraqi forces by a robot swarm could have had a significant effect on the battle's outcome.
"Using VR-Forces was an integral piece of our experiments to understand how to model robot swarms using a CGF system and how that model could be used to improve swarm tactics, " said Dr. Kevin Foster. "VR-Forces provides an extensive set of advanced entity models and high-resolution terrain databases that facilitate the development of robot swarm models that operate in complex urban terrain. The VR-Forces Lua scripting language interface provides an efficient method to modify existing entity models to exhibit autonomous behavior and develop a flexible genetic algorithm to improve swarm tactics. With VR-Forces' capability for batch execution, the machine learning model we developed enhanced swarm tactics over hundreds of unattended simulation scenarios."
Colombian National Government
The Battlefield is Evolving.
The Increased Threat of Cyber Attack Affects Strategic Decision Making.
As technologies continue to advance and become more deeply ingrained in modern life, threats of a crippling cyber attack or electronic warfare (EW) become increasingly probable. In an attempt to mitigate these risks, the Colombian national government (represented by the Ministry of Information Technology), the Higher War School in Colombia, and ITM Consulting Company joined forces to explore the role simulation plays in understanding, preparing for, and combating cyber attacks.
To build electronic warfare scenarios, the organizations needed a tool that could create and model elements vulnerable to cyber attacks, such as radar systems, military and civilian entities, and communication systems; they chose VT MAK’s VR-Forces simulation software tool for the job. VR-Forces not only allowed them to create scenarios to play out different threats in different environments, but also gave them the freedom to redesign the User Interface (UI) to match specific scenario needs. The group conducted three major cyber attack scenarios, which they are using to create response strategies.
In the first scenario, VR-Forces simulated two aircraft teams, where the red team was given a mission to use scanners and jammers to alter the frequency on the blue team’s radar systems; doing this enabled the red team to use attack aircraft to undermine the blue team’s defense system (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Illustration of a Radar Attack
The second scenario uses VR-Forces to simulate an electronic warfare attack on the Colombian oil infrastructure, a victim of frequent terrorist attacks. In this exercise, the red team was instructed to alter the readings on specific valves on a pipeline to ignite fires. Additionally attacks on the blue team’s surveillance systems (unmanned aircraft) set out to deter the blue team’s response (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Cyber Attack on a Colombian Oil Infrastructure
A third scenario highlights the danger to civilian population if the turbines in a hydroelectric plant are compromised through a cyber attack. The red team in this situation instigates drastic variations in water levels at the plant that in turn disrupt the power and energy generated to the nearby town. The power and energy disruptions bring about detrimental consequences for the simulated town (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Cyber Attack on the Colombian Critical Infrastructure
The exercises using VR-Forces have contributed to research and development efforts led by the Department of Telematics ESDEGUE, and in particular its line of research in Cybersecurity and Cyber Defense.
"What we were able to do with VR-Forces allowed us to lead the research process for the modeling and simulation of Electronic Warfare and Cybernetics; it is through this research that we learn how to best describe the behavior of different cyber attacks and EW tactics to determine scenarios, trends, and courses of action with excellent results,” says Colonel Martha Liliana Sanchez Lozano, the Official Colombian Air Force Chief of Telematics and Program Coordinator of Cybersecurity and Cyber Defense at the Higher War School.
University of Alabama
Militaries are developing swarms of autonomous robotic Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to conduct missions that are too hazardous for human crews or expensive robotic systems. Using MAK's VR-Forces CGF, researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) are conducting experiments to determine if a simulated model of a robot swarm can improve military swarm tactics.
Robot swarms (groups of robots acting autonomously to achieve a common goal) conduct complex missions using many simple, inexpensive robots. Defined by basic rules that govern interactions between the robots in the swarm and environmental influences, the swarm uses tactics and control schemes to generate coordination and emergent behavior through swarm intelligence.
Because operational robot swarms are not yet available in the real world, doctrine developers use constructive entity-level combat models, like MAK's VR-Forces, to devise employment tactics for robot swarms. Here's how UAH is doing it.
UAH's Robot Swarm Experiments Using VR-Forces
Over the last two years, UAH researchers Dr. Mikel Petty and Dr. Kevin Foster researched models of swarm robots as a part of Dr. Foster's dissertation work. The research included three integrated efforts:
- Use Design of Experiments (DoE) methods and retrodiction of a historical battle to calibrate model parameter settings and estimate the tactical impact of a simple robot swarm in VR-Forces – we'll discuss this effort below.
- Develop an autonomous robot swarm model in VR-Forces
- Improve the tactical performance of the swarm using a genetic algorithm implemented with VR-Forces Lua scripts
The rest of this blog post covers the first effort listed above. The results were published in the July 2021 issue of the Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, titled "Estimating the tactical impact of robot swarms using a semi-automated forces system and design of experiments methods." The combat model was calibrated using retroactive prediction, or ''retrodiction,'' a method that involves simulating a historical battle and comparing the simulation results to the battle's historical outcome. For this experiment, the researchers used the Battle of 73 Easting as the historical battle to simulate in VR-Forces. The calibrated combat model was then used to estimate the tactical impact of a notional Iraqi robot swarm conducting reconnaissance and surveillance in that battle.
The Battle of 73 Easting, which was influential in the overall outcome of the 1991 Gulf War, was fought on 26 February 1991 in featureless desert terrain near the Iraq–Kuwait border. It was fought between the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (2ACR) of the United States Army and two brigades of the Tawakalna Division of the Iraqi Republican Guard. An extensive analysis of the battlefield and interviews with participants in the weeks after the Battle of 73 Easting provided the information needed to create and validate a VR-Forces model of the battle.
The Design of Experiments methods produced estimates of the interaction of the robot swarm's effect with the technologies of the combatants' weapon systems. Simulation trials and statistical analysis showed that the tactical benefits of an Iraqi robot swarm were overshadowed by the advantage provided by the US forces' thermal sights. However, additional trials indicated that if both sides had been equipped with optical sights only, the early warning provided to the Iraqi forces by a robot swarm could have had a significant effect on the battle's outcome.
"Using VR-Forces was an integral piece of our experiments to understand how to model robot swarms using a CGF system and how that model could be used to improve swarm tactics, " said Dr. Kevin Foster. "VR-Forces provides an extensive set of advanced entity models and high-resolution terrain databases that facilitate the development of robot swarm models that operate in complex urban terrain. The VR-Forces Lua scripting language interface provides an efficient method to modify existing entity models to exhibit autonomous behavior and develop a flexible genetic algorithm to improve swarm tactics. With VR-Forces' capability for batch execution, the machine learning model we developed enhanced swarm tactics over hundreds of unattended simulation scenarios."
Colombian National Government
The Battlefield is Evolving.
The Increased Threat of Cyber Attack Affects Strategic Decision Making.
As technologies continue to advance and become more deeply ingrained in modern life, threats of a crippling cyber attack or electronic warfare (EW) become increasingly probable. In an attempt to mitigate these risks, the Colombian national government (represented by the Ministry of Information Technology), the Higher War School in Colombia, and ITM Consulting Company joined forces to explore the role simulation plays in understanding, preparing for, and combating cyber attacks.
To build electronic warfare scenarios, the organizations needed a tool that could create and model elements vulnerable to cyber attacks, such as radar systems, military and civilian entities, and communication systems; they chose VT MAK’s VR-Forces simulation software tool for the job. VR-Forces not only allowed them to create scenarios to play out different threats in different environments, but also gave them the freedom to redesign the User Interface (UI) to match specific scenario needs. The group conducted three major cyber attack scenarios, which they are using to create response strategies.
In the first scenario, VR-Forces simulated two aircraft teams, where the red team was given a mission to use scanners and jammers to alter the frequency on the blue team’s radar systems; doing this enabled the red team to use attack aircraft to undermine the blue team’s defense system (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Illustration of a Radar Attack
The second scenario uses VR-Forces to simulate an electronic warfare attack on the Colombian oil infrastructure, a victim of frequent terrorist attacks. In this exercise, the red team was instructed to alter the readings on specific valves on a pipeline to ignite fires. Additionally attacks on the blue team’s surveillance systems (unmanned aircraft) set out to deter the blue team’s response (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Cyber Attack on a Colombian Oil Infrastructure
A third scenario highlights the danger to civilian population if the turbines in a hydroelectric plant are compromised through a cyber attack. The red team in this situation instigates drastic variations in water levels at the plant that in turn disrupt the power and energy generated to the nearby town. The power and energy disruptions bring about detrimental consequences for the simulated town (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Cyber Attack on the Colombian Critical Infrastructure
The exercises using VR-Forces have contributed to research and development efforts led by the Department of Telematics ESDEGUE, and in particular its line of research in Cybersecurity and Cyber Defense.
"What we were able to do with VR-Forces allowed us to lead the research process for the modeling and simulation of Electronic Warfare and Cybernetics; it is through this research that we learn how to best describe the behavior of different cyber attacks and EW tactics to determine scenarios, trends, and courses of action with excellent results,” says Colonel Martha Liliana Sanchez Lozano, the Official Colombian Air Force Chief of Telematics and Program Coordinator of Cybersecurity and Cyber Defense at the Higher War School.