Automated Intelligent Pilots for Combat Flight Simulation

TacAir-Soar is an intelligent, rule-based system that generates believable “human-like” behavior for large scale, distributed military simulations. The innovation of the application is primarily a matter of scale and integration. The system is capable of executing most of the airborne missions that the United States military flies in fixed-wing aircraft. It accomplishes this by integrating a wide variety of intelligent capabilities, including real-time hierarchical execution of complex goals and plans, communication and coordination with humans and simulated entities, maintenance of situational awareness, and the ability to accept and respond to new orders while in flight. The system is currently deployed at the Oceana Naval Air Station WISSARD Lab and the Air Force Research Laboratory in Mesa, AZ. Its most dramatic use was in the Synthetic Theater of War 1997, which was an operational training exercise that ran for 48 continuous hours during which TacAir-Soar flew all U.S. fixed-wing aircraft.