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Increased Demand for All Domain Simulation
Even before the recent increase in the use of Artificial Intelligence, the US Government sought an increase in the use of simulation for informing analyses. Machine Learning techniques demanded larger volumes of data to train predictive models, and AI merely stacked on top of that demand. However, simulation could not be just any simulation. The simulation had to have the trust of the USG and the transparency to achieve and maintain that trust. Simulations had to be flexible to incorporate all manners of new capabilities and functions, and be highly scalable – a general-purpose Simulation-as-a-Service (SaaS).
Scalability From the Seafloor to Space
AVALON is an all-domain, all-function Simulation-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution using RESTful APIs and the USG’s AFSIM (Advanced Framework for Simulation and Integrated Modeling) simulation engine. AVALON also features cloud-native deployment for massive horizontal scaling. AVALON is currently powering the development of cutting-edge artificial intelligence capabilities for the Department of the Air Force, USINDOPACOM, and DARPA. The AVALON database of assets provides for thousands of systems, sensors, and weapons can be queried through a series of API calls, providing our customers with faster-than-real-time simulation of operations from seafloor to space.
Data Standards – The Unspoken Necessity
The challenge in all-domain, all-function simulation is ensuring that simulation methods and artifacts do not give one model an artificial advantage of others. Furthermore, the flexibility of newer simulation – like AFSIM – provide for a daunting number of ways in which any one system can be modeled, increasing the risk of analysts getting locked in never-ending loops of trial and error. To tackle both of these challenges, AVALON provides set data standards that ensure equity in the fidelity of assets simulated in any domain.
- Incorporating the Best Available Data: By setting these standards, AVALON provides a clear path for ingesting USG databases to translate those crucial, hard-won data into models within the simulation, increasing the pedigree and trustworthiness of simulation outputs.
- Faster Understanding, and Faster Insights: For the analysts, it provides a clear picture of the required data and a faster understanding of how to modify parameters in the simulation to achieve desired analytic insights. All of AVALON’s data standards are contained in the codebase, provided opensource for use in connection databases and for inspection by users and engineers.
- Breaking New Ground: AVALON’s EXCALIBR standards for Command, Control, and Mission-type Orders and Tasks fill a critical whitespace in the published standards for simulation interoperability. In addition to system-level standards in AVALON, EXCALIBR provides a well-abstracted and well-generalized system of command and control that has direct linkage to the languages used by USG planners in Operational Planning Processes, Military Decision-Making Processes, Operational Analysis, and construction of Mission-Essential Tasks. Better than just everyday linkage, however, EXCALIBR reduces the complexity of the languages for those processes into something that facilitates and speeds learning in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.