Self-organizing Swarm Demonstration

(Probably not suitable to be run on a mobile phone with a small display)

This is a demonstration of a self-organizing swarm where unit behavior is controlled by KEEL Technology.

When the demonstration is started a group of UAVs are released onto the stage. They fly to randomly generated points. Each unit has a fuel supply and a weapon supply. They are waiting for a target to be identified. A target is generated by clicking on the display with the mouse. The units self-organize into a team where their status is compared with all of the others to determine if they should be part of the team. Their status is also used to determine who is the leader of the team.

Each UAV has 2 KEEL Engines: one providing collision avoidance control, and one performing the team evaluation function plus self-health evaluation.

To the right of the battlespace, a configuration and information panel is displayed.

At the top there are 3 checkboxes.

The Adjustable Swarm Size, when checked, will request that the number of units will change each time a new target is selected. This simulates the case where external intelligence identifies the type of target.

The Quiet checkbox, when checked, will not play a sound when the target is engaged by any UAV.

The Stop checkbox, when checked, will stop the motion of the UAVs for analysis.

The series of sliders allow the control of certain properties the KEEL Engine within the UAVs uses in the team evaluation function. In other words, these properties control the importance of certain factors. With these, one is changing how the UAVs think.

At the bottom, the status of individual UAVs can be examined. You can click on UAVs on the stage to select the UAV and watch its status change. For example if you Stop the animation, you can select different UAVs and see whether it is Not Targeting (the normal state when not in a team and randomly moving around the stage), Targeting (when it has joined a team to go after a target), or Homing (when its self-evaluation determines it is time to return for weapon/fuel resupply).

When you "tell machines how to think on their own, they can do much more than following a fixed set of rules. When machines can self-organize on their own they can adapt to the situation at hand in the most effective way. When KEEL Technology is used, humans remain in charge of the behavioral policies and can assure that the most effective policies are deployed."

Telling a machine how to think is different from programming a machine to perform a task! If you don't know the technology, you will not be prepared for what is coming.