Recent Developments in the MANA Agent-based Model

Abstract

Agent-based models have recently gained in popularity for modelling military operations. They purposefully leave out detailed physical attributes of the military entities concerned if this is not expected to have any bearing on the study at hand. This allows scenarios to be run relatively fast, over many excursions in order to discover unique situations or tactics where friendly forces can achieve dominance over an enemy. Another key feature of agent-based models is that, although the one-to-one interaction between various agents and their environment may be quite simple, the combined effect of many agents interacting can lead to complicated group dynamics and emergent behaviour. In this regard, agent-based models have the potential to represent the more chaotic and intangible aspects of military conflicts.