On games and simulators as a platform for development of artificial intelligence for command and control

TL;DR

This paper explores how games and simulators serve as platforms for developing AI in command and control scenarios, highlighting their relevance to military applications and future technological integrations.

Contribution

It reviews past and current efforts in adapting gaming AI and simulators for military simulations and discusses future prospects with virtual reality and visual augmentation.

Findings

Games support complex multi-agent AI development

Simulators bridge gaming and military applications

Virtual reality enhances human-machine interfaces

Abstract

Games and simulators can be a valuable platform to execute complex multi-agent, multiplayer, imperfect information scenarios with significant parallels to military applications: multiple participants manage resources and make decisions that command assets to secure specific areas of a map or neutralize opposing forces. These characteristics have attracted the artificial intelligence (AI) community by supporting development of algorithms with complex benchmarks and the capability to rapidly iterate over new ideas. The success of artificial intelligence algorithms in real-time strategy games such as StarCraft II have also attracted the attention of the military research community aiming to explore similar techniques in military counterpart scenarios. Aiming to bridge the connection between games and military applications, this work discusses past and current efforts on how games and simulators, together with the artificial intelligence algorithms, have been adapted to simulate certain aspects of military missions and how they might impact the future battlefield. This paper also investigates how advances in virtual reality and visual augmentation systems open new possibilities in human interfaces with gaming platforms and their military parallels.