Historically, the Infantry Immersion Trainer has relied heavily on human role-players to serve as the occupants of a simulated village located in Iraq or Afghanistan. While this works for many situations, it is expensive. Additionally, there are some vital roles and situations that aren 't easily portrayed with live role-players (such as those of children or the elderly). The facility currently includes support for the use of mixed reality characters, which are displayed on life-sized screens in some areas of the village. These characters have been designed primarily for use in kinetic "shoot or no-shoot" scenarios requiring relatively short interactions with the trainees. Under the Future Immersive Training Environment Joint Capability Technology Demonstration, one goal was to develop technology which could be used to create characters who can force the trainees to make a variety of complex decisions in non-kinetic situations, as part of scenarios that last for an extended period of time (10 minutes or more). These characters need to be visually and behaviorally plausible, culturally appropriate, and responsive to the actual situation and the actions of the trainees. They should be able to act autonomously, but also be responsive to operator control. Our test character portrays an elderly Afghan woman who is the grandmother of an insurgent. She is built around a modular artificial intelligence which works in conjunction with improved artwork, a more complex animation system, instrumentation of the room and the trainees, and direction from the Instructor/Operator Station. She can not only react appropriately to the actions of the Marines, but can also respond to questioning and engage in limited conversation (in her native language of Pashto), all while attempting to minimize the visible repetition of behavior. She has not only succeeded in forcing the trainees to make difficult decisions, but also leaves us well positioned to incorporate further improvements (such as more detailed instrumentation of the room, or a social/psychological model of the village state) in future characters.
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