AI-driven adaptive analysis for finding emergent behavior in military capability design

This article introduces and demonstrates a new methodology for searching for emergent behavior in simulation-based analysis as rare, extreme events using adaptive techniques enabled by recent advances in Bayesian machine learning (ML). The new methodology, Low-cost Adaptive exploratioN to Track down Extreme, Rare events using Numerical optimization (LANTERN), supports analysis activities in defense planning that iteratively build up the understanding of new technology and concept alternatives in complex military scenarios. Central to this process is emergent behavior—hard-to-predict but highly important behaviors that present problems or opportunities. These unexpected behaviors can be generated in complex military scenarios and are crucial to decision-making, but are often difficult to find and work with due to the expense and cost of the existing approaches for working with high-fidelity military simulation. To address this challenge, LANTERN is formulated to accelerate the discovery of emergent behavior as rare, extreme events by combining human expert understanding with new artificial intelligence (AI)-driven adaptive experimentation techniques in iterative analysis. A demonstration of the methodology is presented using military agent-based simulation scenarios developed in the Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM). The demonstration highlights how analysis can focus directly on searching for emergent behavior and shows substantial improvements over brute-force Monte Carlo approaches.