Computer Science Department
University of Iowa
We are building Hank (see http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~hank), a real-time driving simulator, as an experimental testbed for scenario research. The major features of Hank include:
The goal of the Hank project is to develop a public, open software system for driving simulation that promotes collaboration among researchers and facilitates sharing of data and code. Special emphasis is placed on the development of technology supporting applications that use interactive simulation to study human driving behavior.
We use Hank to experiment with behavior modeling and scenario authoring methods. Hank contains a catalog of directable agents including automobiles, bicycles, pedestrians, and traffic lights that can be instantiated to populate virtual driving environments. We are investigating techniques to orchestrate complex scenarios embedded in ambient traffic.
O. Alloyer, E. Bonakdarian, J. Cremer, J. Kearney, and P. Willemsen, "Embedding Scenarios in Ambient Traffic," To appear in Proceedings of DSC 97 (Driving Simulation Conference), Lyon, France, September, 1997.
J. Cremer, J.K. Kearney, and P. Willemsen, "Directable Behavior Models for Virtual Driving Scenarios," Transactions of the Society fo Computer Simulation International, special issue on Multiagent Systems, Volume 14, Number 2, June, 1997.
J. Cremer, J. Kearney, and Y. Papelis, "Driving Simulation: Challenges for VR Technology," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, pages 16-20, September, 1996.
J. Kearney, S. Allen, Shaheen Bahauddin, Michael J. Bartelme, T. Chow, D. Evans, and B. Mannlein, "Tile-based Scene Modeling for Driving Simulation," IMAGE V Conference, July 1996, Tucson, AZ.
J. Cremer, J.K. Kearney, and Y. Papelis, "HCSM: A Framework for Behavior and Scenario Control in Virtual Environments," ACM Transactions on Modeling and Simulation, Volume 5, Number 2, July, 1995.
J. Cremer, J. Kearney, Y. Papelis, and R. Romano, "The Software Architecture for Scenario Control in the Iowa Driving Simulator," Proceedings of the 4th Computer Generated Forces and Behavioral Representation Conference, May 4-6, 1994, Orlando, FL.
J. Cremer and J. Kearney, "Scenario Authoring For Virtual Environments," Proceedings of IMAGE VI Conference, July 1994, Tucson, AZ.
Virtual environments present what appear to be conflicting demands on scenario control. On one hand, computer generated agents must behave in consistent and believable ways in a complex, dynamic environment. They must interact with other simulated agents and subjects who have considerable freedom of action. On the other hand, experimental and training applications require that subjects be tested under controlled conditions. The essential aspects of events and situations must be repeated from trial to trial. The challenge we face is to create scenarios that reproduce the intended conditions without overly restricting the subject's actions and while maintaining dynamism, complexity, and spontaneity in agent behaviors.
For example, consider the problem of creating a crash threat on a simulated urban freeway for a virtual driving environment. Such a scenario might be part of an experiment to determine the influence of Alzheimer's disease on the driving ability. The scenario requires generation of dense traffic that provides a backdrop for a critical situation such as an abrupt stop or dangerous lane change. In order to compare the performance of subjects, the behavior of the vehicles surrounding the driver must be carefully orchestrated -- some vehicle, possibly determined on-line, must perform the threatening deed and gaps in the traffic that provide possible escape routes must be consistently presented. Moreover, this coordination must be done inconspicuously so as not to alert subjects to the upcoming event.
Research in this area encompasses technology for:
An important component of this research is the development of effective interfaces for authoring scenarios. This includes the design of basic behaviors, the specification of ambient characteristics of the environment, and the specification of critical events in the context of the scene in which they will take place.
Bruno Arnaldi, Remi Cozot, and Stephane Donikian, "Automated Cars in a Virtual Urban Environment," Virtual Environments '95, Martin Gobel, editor, Springer Verlag, January, 1995.
Bruce M. Blumberg and Tinsley A. Galyean, "Multi-level direction of autonomous creatures for real-time virtual environments," Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 95), August, 1995.
Rodney A. Brooks, "A Robot that Walks: Emergent Behaviors from a Carefully Evolved Network," Proceedings of the 1989 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May, 1989.
J. Granieri, W. Becket, B. Reich, J. Crabtree, and N. Badler, "Behavioral control for real-time simulated human agents," Proceedings of the 1995 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, Monterey, CA, 1995
David Harel, Hagi Lachover, Amnon Naamad, Amir Pnueli, Michl Politi, Rivi Sherman, Aharon Shtull-trauring, and Mark Trakhtenbrot, "Statemate: A working environment for development of complex reactive systems", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v. 16, n. 4, April, 1990.
Margaret Kelso and Peter Weyhrauch and Joseph Bates, "Dramatic Presence", PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, v. 2, n. 1, 1993.
P. Maes, Designing Autonomous Agents, The MIT Press, 1990
Rahul Sukthankar, "Situational Awareness for Driving in Traffic", PhD Thesis,. Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 1997.
M. Tambe, W. L. Johnson, R. Jones, F. Koss, J. Laird, P. Rosenbloom, and K. Schwamb, "Intelligent agents for interactive simulation environments", AI Magazine, v. 16, n. 1, 1995.
From Animals to Animats 3, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, edited by Dave Cliff, Philip Husbands, Jean-Arcady Meyer, and Stewart W. Wilson, Brighton, England, August 8-12, 1994.
AAAI 1995 Spring Symposium on Interactive Story Systems: Plot and Character, Stanford, CA, March 1995.
The First Workshop on Simulation and Interaction in Virtual Environments, Iowa City, Iowa, July, 1995.
Workshop on Traffic and Scenario Generation for Driving Simulation, Orlando, Florida, December 6-7, 1996.
Autonomous Agents '97, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey, CA, February 5-8, 1997.
Adaptive Human Interfaces
Usability and User-Centered Design
Collaboration with researchers in the area of Adaptive Human Interfaces to apply of behavior modeling technology to adaptive human interfaces.
Collaboration with researchers in the area of Usability and User-Center Design to improve scene and scenario authoring interfaces. A second area of potential collaboration is the development of interfaces for interactive testing and inspection of complex environments densely populated with automonous agents. Related to this is experimenter-in-the-loop simulation in which human directors guide the evolution of the scenario by sending on-line instructions to simulated agents.