In most modern warfighter simulations users interact with semi-automated forces (SAF) through a graphical user interface (GUI). Players point and click on SAFs they wish to control and command them via the GUI. While this provides good command staff training it is not a realistic simulation of how the staff would actually function during exercises with troops or wartime. In the real world the command staff would use their radio networks to communicate with troops and issue orders. This type of communication using formatted radio messages is rarely modeled in simulations and could easily be added using modern Chat-Bot technologies.

Although Chat-Bot technology still has a long way to go in the field of parsing and responding to conversational natural language, the technology has developed enough to handle the structured forms of military radio communications. By modifying the AI of the Chat-Bot to handle these communications the Chat-Bot can interact with the user via formatted radio messages. The Chat-Bot can then be attached to the AI of the SAF and act as its command interface. The command staff can then send radio messages to the SAF, just as they would with real forces, and the SAF would act accordingly. Currently these radio messages must be text based, however given the available technology and advances in voice recognition software these interactions may soon be performed via voice or radio transmissions. A Battalion could set up their Tactical Operations Center and command real and virtual units over the same radio network operating as they would in wartime.

This paper will focus on the modification of the AI to interact using standard military radio messages, techniques for setting up a network of these entities, methods for connecting Chat-Bot AIs to the SAFs and some of the research and prototypes that are currently being tested.