Computational military tactical planning system

Abstract

A computational system called fuzzy-genetic decision optimization combines two soft computing methods, genetic optimization and fuzzy ordinal preference, and a traditional hard computing method, stochastic system simulation, to tackle the difficult task of generating battle plans for military tactical forces. Planning for a tactical military battle is a complex, high-dimensional task which often bedevils experienced professionals. In fuzzy-genetic decision optimization, the military commander enters his battle outcome preferences into a user interface to generate a fuzzy ordinal preference model that scores his preference for any battle outcome. A genetic algorithm iteratively generates populations of battle plans for evaluation in a stochastic combat simulation. The fuzzy preference model converts the simulation results into a fitness value for each population member, allowing the genetic algorithm to generate the next population. Evolution continues until the system produces a final population of high-performance plans which achieve the commander's intent for the mission. Analysis of experimental results shows that co-evolution of friendly and enemy plans by competing genetic algorithms improves the performance of the planning system. If allowed to evolve long enough, the plans produced by automated algorithms had a significantly higher mean performance than those generated by experienced military experts.