Real-time decision support in online training environments

Multi-agency crisis management represents one of the most complex real-world situations, requiring rapid negotiation and decision-making under extreme pressure. However, the training provided to Gold Commanders (strategic planners), typically lacks the stress of a real crisis and research tells us that behaviour and decision-making are significantly affected by stress. It is therefore vital that training puts trainees under the pressure of a real crisis situation as far as is possible. The Pandora+ system has been developed to provide a realistic, immersive, augmented reality training environment in which the stress of each individual trainee can be managed by the trainer, during a training event, with the support of system intelligence. The system uses AI planning techniques to manage an unfolding crisis scenario, modelled as an event network which can be dynamically updated by the trainer during a training event. This modelling includes points of decision for trainees managed by automated rules from a knowledge base, behavioural modelling of the trainees, and ambient management of the environment to provide affective inputs to control and manage trainee stress. In this context, the system controls and reacts to trainee performance in relation to the events and decision points and can dynamically remodel and reconfigure the event network to respond appropriately to trainee decisions. The environment can also represent any missing trainees within the scenario and has the potential to provide training in any domain where an unfolding scenario of events are required for training.