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Computer gaming for better homeland security training

- DHS Fellow pushing the gaming technology envelope

(Jan. 29, 2007)

    “On the job training” has taken on a new meaning with the growing use of computer games designed for teaching. Leading this movement are DHS student researchers such as 2005 DHS Fellow David Roberts.

    With an estimated audience of one hundred million players in the U.S., interactive and online gaming has become a medium not just for entertainment but also for instruction in areas such as homeland security.

    “Simulation and computer games can create training experiences for people protecting the homeland,” says David, a Ph.D. student in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. “My research focus is to provide training tools that will enable efficient authoring of more realistic and complex scenarios.”

    David develops technologies to enable the authoring of simulation scenarios that are “predictably unpredictable” creating an unpredictable environment for the learner, but retaining predictability for the trainer. A piece of this process is building-in a level of probability of unpredictable events to match the potential of a real-life situation.

    To make these scenarios more engaging, David works as part of a team of researchers who are building complex environments where hundreds or thousands of intelligent agents, each with their own goals and agendas, interact in a realistic and meaningful manner. The human trainee in this approach is just one of the intelligent agents participating in the game. These long-lived simulated social environments require continual learning and adaption by the non-human players.

    “The results of my work will enable more effective training for DHS community members such as border patrol agents, TSA baggage screeners or port cargo screeners,” says David.