Complexity Science Seminar Series - Abstracts
Title:
The Decision-Making under UnCertainty (DMUC) Model
Presenter:
Dr. Sam E. Middlebrooks
Date and Time: Friday, October 17th, 2008 2:00-3:00pm
Abstract:
Most military decision making requires a sequence of actions. These actions may include aspects of intelligence gathering, troop movement, artillery fire, etc. Typically these actions are tied to a specific goal that might include securing a region or disrupting the enemy forces. Furthermore, when making the necessary decisions to reach the specific goal, there may be a great deal of uncertainty about the situation. Where exactly are the enemy troops? What is their objective? The use of Bayesian statistics makes it possible to compute optimal performance for military-like situations. This research develops a model that provides the theoretical best performance that can be achieved in the task. An example task that can illustrate this condition is a seek-and-destroy mission in which there is an enemy at an unknown location within a certain region. Using reconnaissance that is imprecise and artillery that is not always accurate the mission is to destroy the enemy. Each action (intelligence gathering and artillery) comes at a specific cost. Furthermore, succeeding at destroying the enemy generates a reward and declaring "Mission Accomplished" when the enemy is still alive generates a significant cost.Bio: Dr. Sam Middlebrooks, a career Federal Civil Service employee for over 26 years, is a member of the Human Research and Engineering Directorate (HRED) of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) where he is the Chief of the ARL-HRED Field Element at Fort Hood, Texas. Previous Federal service includes 17 years in progressive assignments in the Federal Republic of Germany. His initial duty there was to conduct surveillance of the EastWest inner German border with the Warsaw Pact while assigned to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Bamberg, Germany. This was followed by an appointment as Assistant G3 Plans officer at VII Corps Headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany developing computer wargame simulations for 2 and 3 star level command and control wargame exercises and administering their use. Continuing in Germany as a Department of the Army Civilian, his service included assignment as chief of the programming team at the Warrior Preparation Center at Einsiedlerhof, Germany, which is a joint U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force computer wargaming facility. For the final seven years overseas he served as director of the V Corps Battle Simulation Center in Frankfurt, Germany. Sam holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. Upon returning to university life for postgraduate studies in 1999 after a 20 year academic hiatus, he holds Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering (Human Factors option) from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia. He also is a retired U.S. Army Armor reserve officer with operational experience in armored and cavalry units from platoon through corps levels. Upon completion of his graduate studies, Sam's Ph.D. dissertation has formed the basis for a new research program at Fort Hood conducting predictive modeling and simulation of human cognitive performance in military command and control systems. Membership in professional societies include the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), the Military Operations Research Society (MORS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Alpha Pi Mu Industrial Engineering Honor Society.
The current paradigm for the description and understanding of the nature of command and control (C2) system (C2S) operations and performance within the U.S. Army is undergoing a radical change. Tactical battlefield C2 is extremely complicated to orchestrate and conduct in an effective manner. With the introduction of a myriad of new information systems, sophisticated new weapons with unprecedented capabilities for lethality, new requirements for battlefield integration, and the total reorganization of force structures into a new modular concept, the need for effective understanding of how this force structure can work effectively as a system entity increases dramatically. Indeed, the C2S has become complicated to the point as to escape the ability for intuitive understanding of how individual components or subsystems can improve or degrade the operation of the overall system. The goal of this research is to understand the cognitive limitations associated with sequential decision making with uncertainty in these types of situations through predictive computer simulation. By combining empirical research investigating optimal decision making under uncertainty with evolving simulations of military command and control, the potential now exists to correlate optimal decision making performance with actual outcomes on the battlefield. The benefit of these simulations will be to enable the evaluations of new command and control subsystems that take into account optimal decision making performance as an evaluation metric.
Seminar Location: The seminars are held at:
Virginia Tech, Corporate Research Center
1880 Pratt Drive, Building XV
Seminar Room, First Floor
Directions: Map (PDF)
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