Patterns of Life

Discovery Machine® uses our Population Composer to obtain geotypical cultural data of realistic populations

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Often when one hears the term Pattern of Life (PoL) one thinks of large aggregate models of crowds or traffic patterns all computed to form an illusory backdrop for games or training. Discovery Machine® PoL agents, however, take a very different approach. Discovery Machine® uses our Population Composer to obtain geotypical cultural data of realistic populations that then get instantiated in as cognitive agent models. This means that each individual agent within the population is a goal directed, situationally aware, agent with family members, occupations, places of worship, favorite restaurants, social groups, business associates, and human needs like eating and sleeping.  All Discovery Machine® PoL Agents are acting to carry out their goals.  They are not scripted and therefore are not locked to specific terrain.  In fact, they know which building is their own house and their own church.

The resulting populations are highly realistic, demonstrating patterns of behavior that change throughout the day.  These patterns are also observed during emergency events, such as explosions, where instead of everyone running like stampeding buffalo,  mothers will seek out their children,  emergency personnel will run toward the danger or help the injured, and others will flee but call their family members to warn them of the danger.  The benefit of this detail is that it makes it possible to inject agents that are outside of the patterns of everyday life.  These could be insurgent cells or other adversaries.   They can be identified against a backdrop of an actual population rather than a painted crowd. Finally, when paired with a Virtual Instructor Agent one can effect some truly extraordinary adaptations.  Imagine a scene where a population breaks into riots based on the actions of the trainee. Or one in which the trainees are accosted by aggrieved individuals based on their actions.

At present Discovery Machine® has populations for villages in Syria, Philippines, and Ukraine. These populations have some culturally specific occupations as well as some general occupations. The populations are based on the MUSIC specification standard, which means that they can be leveraged in many simulations systems.