The nature of conflict continues to evolve by way of the twenty first century with battle zones shifting from jungles and deserts to coastal cities. Not to say the quickly rising industrial availability of cutting-edge applied sciences together with UAVs and wi-fi communications. To assist the Marine Corps finest put together for these elevated complexities and challenges, the Department of Defense tasked DARPA with creating a digital coaching and operations planning software. The result’s the Prototype Resilient Operations Testbed for Expeditionary Urban Scenarios (PROTEUS) system, a real-time technique simulator for urban-littoral warfare.

When the PROTEUS program first started in 2017, “there was a big push across DARPA under what we call a sustainment focus area, and that included urban warfare,” Dr. Tim Grayson, director of DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, advised Engadget, taking a look at how you can finest assist and “sustain” US preventing forces in varied fight conditions till they will end their mission.

The PROTEUS program supervisor (who has since departed DARPA), Dr. John S Paschkewitz, “came to the realization that the urban environment is really complex, both from a maneuver perspective,” Grayson mentioned, “but also going into the future where there’s all this commercial technology that will involve communications and spectrum stuff, maybe even robotics and things of that nature.”

Even with out the specter of armed UAVs and autonomous killbots, trendy city battle zones pose plenty of challenges together with restricted strains of sight and dense, pervasive civilian populations. “​​There’s such a wide range of missions that happen in urban environments,” Grayson mentioned. “A lot of it is almost like peacekeeping, stabilization operations. How do we… help the local populace and protect them.” He additionally notes that the army is commonly referred to as in to help with each nationwide emergencies and pure disasters, which pose the identical points albeit with out almost as a lot capturing.

“So, if someone like the Marines or some other kind of sustainment military unit had to go conduct operations in a complex urban environment,” he continued, “it’d be a limited footprint. So, [Paschkewitz] started looking at what we refer to as the ‘what do I put in the rucksack problem.’”

“The urban fight is about delivering precise effects and adapting faster than the adversary in an uncertain, increasingly complex environment,” Paschkewitz mentioned in a DARPA launch from June. “For US forces to maintain a distinct advantage in urban coastal combat scenarios, we need agile, flexible task organizations able to create surprise and exploit advantages by combining effects across operational domains.”

PROTEUS itself is a software program program designed to run on a pill or hardened PDA and permit anybody from a squad chief as much as an organization commander to observe and modify the “composition of battlefield elements — including dismounted forces, vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), manned aircraft and other available assets,” in accordance with the release. “Through PROTEUS, we aim to amplify the initiative and decision-making capabilities of NCOs and junior officers at the platoon and squad level, as well as field-grade officers, commanding expeditionary landing teams, for example, by giving them new tools to compose tailored force packages not just before the mission, but during the mission as it unfolds.”

But PROTEUS isn’t only for monitoring and redeploying forces, it additionally serves as a real-time technique coaching system to assist NCOs and officers check and analyze completely different capabilities and ways nearly. “One of the beauties of [PROTEUS] is it’s flexible enough to program with whatever you want,” Grayson mentioned. It permits warfighters to “go explore their own ideas, their own structure concepts, their own tactics. They’re totally free to use it just as an open-ended experimentation, mission rehearsal or even training type of tool.”

But for its design flexibility, the system’s physics engine intently conforms to the real-world behaviors and tolerances of present army gear in addition to industrial drones, mobile, satellite tv for pc and Wi-Fi communications, sensors and even weapons programs. “The simulation environment is sophisticated but doesn’t let them do things that are not physically realizable,” Grayson defined.

The system additionally features a dynamic composition engine referred to as COMPOSER which not solely automate the staff’s gear loadout however also can take a look at a commander’s plan and supply suggestions on a number of features together with “electromagnetic signature risk, assignment of communications assets to specific units and automatic configuration of tactical networks,” in accordance with a DARPA press launch.

“Without the EMSO and logistics wizards, it’s hard to effectively coordinate and execute multi-domain operations,” Paschkewitz mentioned. “Marines can easily coordinate direct and indirect fires, but coordinating those with spectrum operations while ensuring logistical support without staff is challenging. These tools allow Marines to focus on the art of war, and the automation handles the science of war.”

Currently, the system is ready up for traditional Red vs Blue fights between opposing human forces although Grayzon doesn’t anticipate PROTEUS to be upgraded to the purpose that people will be capable to compete towards the CPU and even much less possible that we’ll see CPU vs CPU — given our present computational and processing capabilities. He does notice that the Constructive Machine-learning Battles with Adversary Tactics (COMBAT) program, which remains to be underway at DARPA, is working to develop “models of Red Force brigade behaviors that challenge and adapt to Blue Forces in simulation experiments.”

“Building a commander’s insight and judgment is driven by the fact that there’s a live opponent,” Paschkewitz mentioned in June. “We built ULTRA [the sandbox module that serves as the basis for the larger system] around that concept from day one. This is not AI versus AI, or human versus AI, rather there is always a Marine against an ADFOR (adversary force), that’s another Marine, typically, forcing the commander to adapt tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and innovate at mission speed.”

“PROTEUS enables commanders to immerse themselves in a future conflict where they can deploy capabilities against a realistic adversary,” Ryan Reeder, mannequin and simulation director, MCWL Experiment Division, said in a statement. “Commanders can hone their battlefield abilities, whereas additionally coaching subordinates on employment methods, delivering a cohesive unit capable of execute in a more practical method.

Technically, DARPA’s involvement with the PROTEUS program has come to an finish following its switch to the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab the place it’s now getting used for ADFOR coaching and creating new TTPs and CONOPS. “My guess is they will mostly use it for their own purposes, as opposed to continuing to develop it,” Grayson mentioned. “The Warfighting Lab is less focused on technology and more focused on our future force, concepts and what are our new tactics.”