The term "Industry 4.0" symbolizes new forms of technology and artificial intelligence within production technologies. Smart robots are going to be the game changers within the factories of the future and will work with humans in indispensable teams within many processes. With this fourth industrial revolution, classical production lines are going through comprehensive modernization, e.g. in terms of in-the-box manufacturing, where humans and machines work side by side in so-called "hybrid teams". Questions about how to prepare for newly needed engineering competencies for the age of Industry 4.0, how to assess them and how to teach and train e.g. human-robot-teams have to be tackled in future engineering education. The paper presents theoretical aspects and empirical results of a series of studies, carried out to investigate the competencies of virtual collaboration and joint problem solving in virtual worlds.

Educating engineers for industry 4.0: Virtual worlds and human-robot-teams: Empirical studies towards a new educational age

In this paper, we outline several ways in which the database community can contribute to the development of technology for computer games. We outline the architecture of different types of computer games, and show how database technology plays a role in their design. From this, we identify several new research directions to improve the utilization of this technology in computer games.

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Database research opportunities in computer games

Cyber-physical systems and “Industry 4.0” will require future engineers to handle big data and complex, multidisciplinary problems as well as to collaborate with machines in “hybrid teams”. As some work spaces will be virtualized or remotely controllable new communication skills and the knowledge of virtual worlds are necessary. Furthermore, working as a team with machines demands not only knowledge of mechanical engineering and machines but also an extended understanding of team working. To meet such challenges future engineers need to acquire new skills and qualification. This task does not only concern engineering students and trainees but also teachers for engineering. Questions about how to prepare for newly needed engineering competencies for the age of Industry 4.0, how to assess them and how to teach and train e.g. human-robot-teams have to be tackled in future engineering education. The paper presents theoretical aspects and empirical results of a series of studies, which were conducted to investigate engineering education in virtual worlds as well as different aspects about team building in hybrid teams.

https://online-journals.org/index.php/i-jep/article/download/6023/4160

Digital Transformation of Engineering Education - Empirical Insights from Virtual Worlds and Human-Robot-Collaboration

We describe an AI behavior architecture that supports responsive collaborative interruptible and resumable behaviors using behavior queues. This architecture wraps sets of behaviors into roles, which provide a simple efficient mechanism for encapsulating behaviors into components that can change dynamically, based on environmental criteria. To illustrate the viability of this architecture in a commercial setting, we implemented this architecture in BioWare Corp.'s Neverwinter Nights game. To demonstrate the usability of this architecture by game designers, we implemented a simple interface in ScriptEase, so that the architecture can be utilized with no coding skills.

https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~duane/publications/pdf/2009aiideMC.pdf

An architecture for game behavior AI: behavior multi-queues

Most game developers think of databases as nothing more than a persistence solution. However, database research is concerned with the wider problem of declarative processing. In this paper we demonstrate how declarative processing can be applied to computer games. We introduce the state-effect pattern, a design pattern that allows game developers to design parts of their game declaratively. We present SGL, a special scripting language which supports this design pattern and which can be compiled to a declarative language like SQL. We show how database techniques can process this design pattern in a way that improves performance by an order of magnitude or more. Finally, we discuss some design decisions that developers must make in order to adopt this pattern effectively.

/pdf/declarative-processing-for-computer-games-2bqb1qkoeb.pdf

Declarative processing for computer games

We describe a visual framework that simplifies authoring of simulated behavior. This framework consists of a canvas depicting behavior as a finite state machine (FSM) graph, a palette of geometric objects and glyphs, and a dictionary of actions and predicates. The user defines a basic vocabulary of actions and predicates which appear as textual and geometric shapes on the canvas. The actions correspond to states in an FSM. Predicates are used to determine valid transitions between states. The basic model is extended in two major ways. First, behaviors are hierarchical in that they may invoke each other. Second, each behavior may have a number of specializations indexed through a descriptor hierarchy. These two extensions serve to encapsulate functionality, and to selectively specialize behavior whenever necessary without arduous re-modification of existing behavior.

/pdf/a-visual-environment-for-rapid-behavior-definition-168nme8hlq.pdf

A Visual Environment for Rapid Behavior Definition

Realistic behaviors for computer-generated forces (CGF) are as crucial as realistic graphics and terrain to the creation of high-quality military simulations. While a variety of simulation-building and 3D-modeling tools exist to help with the construction of the latter, the development of CGF behaviors still typically requires programming code to be written, either in a standard language such as C++ or Java or in a custom scripting language. As a result, the subject matter experts (SMEs) with the tactical or operational knowledge about how CGF should behave are seldom able to directly specify that behavior for a simulation, because they lack the necessary programming skill. The researchers therefore set out to develop an approach to simulation behavior authoring that minimizes the amount of programming required while still allowing the creation of sophisticated behaviors. Two key observations guided this effort. First, there exist already a variety of largely visual “languages” for describing complex sequences of actions and conditions – such as flowcharts, finite-state machines, and decision trees – that are either familiar to or quickly understandable by non-programmers. Second, CGF behaviors, particularly at a tactical or operational level, can often be adequately specified using such lightweight procedural representations. The end result was a behavior authoring methodology that is founded on a lightweight, visual, procedural approach to modeling CGF behaviors. This methodology, which is embodied in a graphical editor and runtime engine, is intended to allow nonprogrammers to participate more directly in the behavior authoring process. It is also designed to encourage good development practices such as reuse and top-down design, to which end it borrows several elements of objectoriented programming, including the notion of behavioral polymorphism. This paper describes the basic authoring methodology and underlying behavior representation. Examples are drawn from the Counter-Strike simulation testbed constructed by the researchers.

A Visual, Object-Oriented Approach to Simulation Behavior Authoring

We describe an AI modeling tool meant to be used by both designers and developers. The method for authoring is visual and meant to convey decision logic in a more intuitive manner while retaining expressiveness. This data-driven approach features an AI runtime engine which incorporates several augmentations which make it suitable for use across a wide array of deployed systems.

/pdf/an-ai-modeling-tool-for-designers-and-developers-3z2321t4j8.pdf

An AI Modeling Tool for Designers and Developers

The behavior of automated forces in military training simulations is frequently hard-coded by a software developer after conferring with subject matter experts. These experts do not directly participate in the development process, instead relying on the developer to correctly implement appropriate behavior. This dependency can result in increased simulation development time and cost.We present a visual behavior representation and accompanying authoring tool that is meant to accelerate the development process by enabling experts to participate in development, while not hindering software developer productivity. An author using this tool constructs behaviors by assembling flowchart-like diagrams from a set of building blocks. The resulting behaviors can be directly executed in a simulation using a simplified yet powerful computational model, also described in this paper.We also discuss the application of this visual behavior representation to the creation of automated players for the Counter-Strike computer game.

Human systems modeling: specifying the behavior of computer-generated forces without programming

The use of wargames in the Air Force curriculum to date has been hindered by the significant amount of time and effort required to develop new wargames, as well as by drastically varying interfaces that impose a steep learning curve on the student. We describe an ongoing effort to develop an advanced wargame construction toolset, called Warcon, that will empower Air Force instructors to create small-scale instructional wargames that embody modern warfare principles. The aim of this toolset is to make the authoring process accessible to a wide range of instructors, via an intuitive visual interface and advanced authoring assistance that eliminate the need for programming. The toolset will feature a customizable adjudication engine with advanced features for modeling effects-based operations, psyops, Military Operations Other Than War, and other aspects of modern warfare. The toolset will present students with a standardized interface, allowing them to build experience with one wargame that will carry to the next, thereby enabling them to focus on the content. Using the proposed toolset, Air Force instructors will be able to design and deploy new wargames into their teaching curriculum more rapidly.© (2004) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Ryan Houlette

Papers

A Visual Environment for Rapid Behavior Definition

A Visual, Object-Oriented Approach to Simulation Behavior Authoring

An AI Modeling Tool for Designers and Developers

Human systems modeling: specifying the behavior of computer-generated forces without programming

Warcon: a wargame construction toolset for military simulations