Emergent behaviour Theory and experimentation using the MANA model.pdfVIP

EMERGENT BEHAVIOUR: THEORY AND EXPERIMENTATION USING THE MANA MODEL JAMES MOFFAT, JOSEPHINE SMITH, AND SUSAN WITTY Received 25 April 2006; Accepted 15 May 2006 In a previous paper, we introduced the idea of a scale-free system, and applied this to extend the Lanchester equations of industrial age warfare into the information age, cor- responding to the shift towards more self-organising force elements in future conflicts. Here, we present evidence from an agent-based model of conflict (MANA) which sup- ports our theoretical analysis. Copyright © 2006 James Moffat et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1. Introduction MANA (Map Aware Nonuniform Automata) is a cellular automata-based simulation model of conflict which has been developed by the New Zealand Defence Technology Agency. It is based on the foundation ideas of complexity and emergence (Lauren and Stephen [12]). It has been developed using as a start point the ISAAC model developed for the US Marine Corps by Illachinski [5]. ISAAC was developed in order to explicitly explore in an experimental fashion the relation between local unit interactions and the resultant emergent properties and behaviour of the overall force. In the MANA simulation model, a scenario is defined by the battlespace and the char- acteristics of the two sides (Blue and Red). Each of the two forces is composed of a number of units. These units have the ability to locally sense their environment, and then decide, on the basis of a number of simple algorithms (based on attraction or repulsion to/from neighbouring units of each side and their attraction to their final goal), how to move around the battlespace. Waypoints can also be defined which help to steer the flow of forces in broad general directions. Over several