Continuous Planning and
Collaboration
for Command and Control
in Joint Synthetic Battlespaces
Jonathan Gratch
Randall W. Hill, Jr.
USC Information Sciences Institute
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Motivation
• Need cost-effective C2 modeling
– Replace / augment human controllers with automated C2
– Represent a wide range of organizations and situations
• Need realistic C2 behavior
– C2 models must make believable decisions
– The outcomes of C2 operations need to be credible
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Project Goals
• Develop autonomous command forces
– Act autonomously for days at a time
• Reduce load on human operators
– Behave in human-like manner
• Produce realistic training environment
– Perform C3I functions
• Reduce the number of human operators
• Create realistic organizational interactions
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Command Force Requirements
• Continuous Planning
– Understand evolving situations
– Achieve goals despite unplanned events
• Collaborative Planning
– Understand behavior of other groups
• friendly forces and opposing forces
– Understand organizational constraints
• communication, coordination, authority
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Command Force Requirements
• Intelligence
– Identify information requirements
– Focus intelligence collection efforts
– Model intelligence constraints on planning
• Companion paper:
– Deriving Priority Intelligence Requirements for
Synthetic Command Entities
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Mission Capabilities
• Army Aviation Deep Attack
– Battalion command agent
– Company command agents
– CSS command agent
– AH64 Apache Rotary Wing Aircraft
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
HA
HA
CSS
FLOT
FARP
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Soar-CFOR Planning Architecture
• Support for continuous planning
– Integrate planning, execution and repair
– Continuous situation awareness
• Support for collaborative planning
– Reasons about plans of multiple groups
– Facilitates plan sharing among entities
– Explicit plan management activities
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Simulation Architecture
Situation Report
(understanding)
Situation Report
(understanding)
Battalion
Commander
Operations Order
(plan)
Operations Order
(plan)
….
Company A
Commander
Company X
Commander
Operations Order
(plan)
Situation Report
(understanding)
Company A
Company X
Pilot
Pilot
Pilot
Helicopter
Helicopter
Helicopter
Actions
Percepts
….
Pilot
Pilot
Pilot
Helicopter
Helicopter
Helicopter
ModSAF
Actions
Percepts
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Architecture
• Planner
– Implements continuous planning capabilities
• Situation Assessment
– Fuses sensors, reports, and expectations
– Generates and updates current world view
• Plan manager
– Supports collaborative planning capabilities
• Domain Theory
– Declarative knowledge base of domain knowledge
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Continuous Planning
• Implements basic planning functions
– Generates plans
– Controls execution & coordination of subordinates
– Recognizes Situation Interrupts and makes repairs
• INPUT:
–
–
–
–
Domain theory (tasks, plan fragments, assets)
Mission objectives, friendly/enemy plans (from OPORDER)
Existing plans
Current situation (from Situation Awareness)
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
What are Plans?
• Hierarchically ordered sequences of tasks
• Plans capture assumptions
– Column movement assumes enemy contact unlikely
• Plans capture task dependencies
– Move_to_Holding_Area results in unit being at the HA,
(precondition to moving to the Battle_Position)
– OPFOR and Co must be at the Engage_area simultaneously
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Battalion Tactical
Plans
Co
Deep Attack
Move
Move
Engage
Co
Deep Attack
Return
Move Move
Engage
Return
Company B plan
Move
Move
Move
Move
FARP
Operations
CSS
plan
Move
Company A plan
Move
Move
OPFOR Plan
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Situation Interrupts Happen!
Current World
Attack(A, Enemy)
at(A,FARP)
at(Enemy,EA)
destroyed(Enemy)
destroyed(Enemy)
active(A)
Engage(A,Enemy)
Start of OP
Move(A,BP)
at(A,FARP)
at(A,BP)
active(A)
at(A,BP)
destroyed(Enemy)
active(A)
ADA
Attack
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Reacting to Situation Interrupt
• Situations evolve unexpectedly
– Goals change, actions fail, intelligence incorrect
• Planner detects if change affects plan
– Invalidate assumptions?
– Violate dependency constraints?
• Repair plans in response to ramifications
– Retract tasks invalidated by change
– Add new tasks
– Re-compute dependencies
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Collaborative Planning
• Reason about plans of other entities
– Friendly forces, OPFOR
• Reason about interactions between plans
• Reason about protocols for resolving
conflicts
• Reason about my role in the organization
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Interaction Example
Move(A,BP)
Engage(A,Y)
at(A,BP)
at(A,FAA)
at(A,BP)
Dead(Y)
at(gas,FAA)
Attack Helicopter Company Plan
Move(CSS,HQ)
at(gas,FAA)
at(gas,HQ)
at(CSS,FAA) at(CSS,HQ)
resupplied(HQ)
Combat Service Support Plan
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Planning Stances
• Authoritative
– Order subordinate to alter his plans
• Tell CSS to abandon re-supply operation
• Deferential
– Change my plans to de-conflict with superior
• Find a way to work around re-supply activity
• Adversarial
– Try to introduce conflict in other agent’s plan
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Plan Management
• Must model when to use different stances
– Involves organizational issues
Where do I fit in the organization
– Stances may need to change over time
During COA Analysis, adopt an adversarial stance towards
ones own plans
• Must model how stances influence planning
– How do we alter COA generation
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
When to Use a Stance
• Model the collaborative planning process
– Includes management tasks that modulate the
generation of tactical plans
• Tasks refer to specific tactical plans
• Specify preconditions on changing stance
– Includes knowledge of one’s organizational role
• Planner constructs management plans
– Use same mechanisms as tactical planning
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Example Management Plan
• Explicitly modeling Military Decision Making Process
Tasks
COA
Development
COA
Analysis
Stances
Authoritative towards subordinates
Deferential towards superiors
Adversarial towards OPFOR
Authoritative towards OPFOR
Adversarial towards self (war gaming)
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Implementing Stances
• Implemented as search control on planner
– Plan manager:
Takes executing management tasks
Generates search control recommendations
• Example: Deferential Stance
– When giving orders to subordinates
Indicate subset of plan is fixed (defer to this)
Indicate rest of plan is flexible
– Plan manager enforces these restrictions
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Interaction Example
Deferential towards
Move(A,BP)
at(A,FAA)
Make CSS Planner
defer to Company
A’s Plan
at(A,BP)
at(gas,FAA)
Move(CSS,HQ)
at(gas,FAA)
at(gas,HQ)
at(CSS,FAA) at(CSS,HQ)
Combat Service Support Plan
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Architecture
• Encode theory of organizational interaction
– Represent stances, authority relationships
• Processed by plan manager
Management
Theory
domain independent
Tactical
Domain Theory
Plan
Manager
general purpose
Reasoner
(Planner)
Management
Plans
Tactical Plans
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999
Summary
• Realistic, cost-effective C2 modeling
– Automate C2 processes
– Need flexible, multi-agent planning
• Continuous Planning
– Integrates situation awareness, planning, execution, and repair
• Collaborative Planning
– Reason about others’ plans, plan interactions
– Represent wide range of organizational interactions using
planning stances
8th CGF & BR Conference
Copyright 1999 Institute for Simulation & Training
11 - 13 May 1999