In today's urban conflicts, there is a real need to use emerging non-lethal weapons technology to reduce fratricide in an environment where friendly, neutral and hostile forces are all in close proximity. A simulation test bed to model crowd responses to non-lethal kinetic and directed energy weapons is required. This M&S capability provides for rapid experimentation and analysis of non-lethal effects on crowds with a focus on development of realistic directed energy models, improved crowd behavior models, and effective analysis tools.
In this paper, we discuss the components/interoperability of the test bed, lessons learned and challenges. Specific attention is given to the crowd model developed, non-lethal weapons, and analysis tools. One Semi-Automated Force (OneSAF) was chosen as the Semi-Automated Forces engine to drive force employment. Since OneSAF does not model non-lethal weapons, we created a series of non-lethal kinetic and directed energy weapons. The Joint Crowd FederateTM (JCF) is used to support the critical crowd modeling function. This paper discusses the enhancements to which improved the sophistication and relevance of the model by taking into account emotional states of the individuals in the crowd.
Newly developed custom Protocol Data Units (PDUs) in the federation provided a rich mix of crowd behavior data for collection and analysis. Since this emotional data cannot be analyzed by traditional simulation visualization, we developed an effective visualization tool that overlays an individual's emotional state with the individual's movements within the crowd. Additionally, a full array of metrics reports and graphs were developed to analyze both the weapons and crowd behavior aspects of the test bed.