iWorlds: Generating artificial control systems for simulated humans using virtual worlds and intelligent environments

Abstract

This paper highlights research into using virtual worlds, intelligent environments and mixed reality to create artificial control systems for simulated humans. Following a brief explanation of this project, the beneficial contribution provided by virtual worlds, intelligent environments and mixed reality systems is outlined. Throughout this project a series of experimental iWorlds, (virtual and mixed reality intelligent environments) have been used to profile the actions and decisions of humans to generate sets of realistic behaviours and test the project research hypothesis. These worlds consist of a mixedreality household experiment plus two supporting game-like behaviour experiments, namely 'Bar-World' and 'Battleships' which were designed to explore and reinforce aspects of the underlying theory. As a core part of this work a description of a new profile generation mechanism is presented, which comprises a genetic programming mechanism that blends real user behaviour data to produce varied artificial profiles for non-player computer characters. In support of this a set of experimental results are presented that reveal the new artificial intelligence mechanism does indeed advance the project aim to create realistic simulated humans. A discussion is included that describes the potential benefits that could be gained by incorporating these methodologies into computer games and professional intelligent environment development systems.

An approach to develop intelligent learning environments by means of immersive virtual worlds

“…which are the main methodologies studied to develop a syntax analyser? ); connection with programs (like the Flex lexical analyser generator, 15 the Yacc parser generator, 16 and the JFLAP software for experimenting with formal languages topics 17 ). These programs were used to propose students to deal with practical implementations and provide them with code execution (e.g., construct a deterministic finite state automaton to recognize a specific language, define the regular expressions to detect identifiers and numbers in a specific programming language, write a parsing grammar to detect valid if-thenelse statements);…”

“…Most of existing intelligent environment research has focused on the design of system architectures to manage communication between hardware devices and sensors in physical spaces. However, Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) [5,8,39] make it possible to extend this work as a powerful testbed for Artificial Intelligence technologies in industrial domains, intelligent assistance in e-commerce on the web, computer games industry, applications which up to now have used 2D simulations (e.g., evacuation of buildings in emergencies or traffic control), robotics, or even advanced mixed reality intelligent environments [16].…”

A model-based simulator for smart homes: Enabling reproducibility and standardization

“…Such comparisons are possibly accompanied by usability questionnaires [2,19]. As the simulation tool proposed in this paper is fully configurable, we do not evaluate the features of the produced dataset, which vary according to the simulation parameters.…”

The Internet-of-Things: Reflections on the past, present and future from a user-centered and smart environment perspective

“…physical IoT and virtual IoT devices) can cooperate as though they were part of a whole system. For example, Davies [37] explored linking objects in on-screen computer games to real objects in the local physical environment (e.g., home lights), thereby mixing realities for heightened experiences for online gamers. As was mentioned earlier, Pena-Rios [74] has explored using mixed reality ideas for creating online engineering labs and, more recently, has been working with BT to deploy similar techniques in support of their field workforce.…”