An embeddable testbed for insurgent and terrorist agent theories: InsurgiSim

Many simulators today contain traditional opponents and lack an asymmetric insurgent style adversary. InsurgiSim prototypes an embeddable testbed containing a threat network of agents that one can easily configure and deploy for training and analysis purposes. The insurgent network was constructed inside a socio-cognitive agent framework (FactionSim-PMFserv) that includes: (a) a synthesis of best-of-breed models of personality, culture, values, emotions, stress, social relations, mobilization, as well as (b) an IDE for authoring and managing reusable archetypes and their task-sets (Sect. 2). Agents and markups in this library are not scripted, and act to follow their values and fulfill their needs. So it's desirable to profile the agents (e.g., faction leaders, cell logisticians, followers, bomb maker, financier, recruiter, etc.) as faithfully to the real world as possible. Doing this will improve the utility of InsurgiSim for studying what may be driving the insurgent agents in a given area of operation as Sect. 3 explains. InsurgiSim's bridge is an HLA federate and can be embedded to drive all or some of the insurgent agents in a 3rd party simulator. Three such examples are summarized in Sect.4. The paper closes with next steps to improve InsurgiSim's capabilities and utility.