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Requirements Analysis

SP Bosbrand Specifications Team sp-bosbrand@cs.uu.nl

Introduction

This specification is split up in four main thematic parts. In each of the sections we present the list of expectations of the project provider and also our proposed solutions to those problems. Technical details and aspects of the implementation were not considered.

World

The world has certain global attributes. These attributes are the same for all cells that constitute part of the forest (`world').

Static items

Each static item has the following properties.
fuel
determines duration cell is on fire.
threshold
below which it burns
state
not burning, burning, burnt
cost
The following static items will be implemented in the ``final'' version.
Trees
Tree, we only keep track of one kind of tree that has the following attributes.
Grass
Grass.
Water
Our primary interest is that it doesn't burn.
Road
Promenade routes in the forest. These can be large enough so that a bulldozer can drive on it, reducing the time of the travel. Unlike a fire-line, fire can cross this cell.
Fire-line
We will use the word `fire-line' to describe the part of the forest that has been cleaned by the bulldozers. Fire cannot cross this cell. 1
Building
This is expensive when burnt down so the controller should avoid this (represents residential area, industrial zone, etc.).
Depot
The start point of the ground fire-fighting agents, deposit place for bulldozers. They are expensive when burnt.

Dynamic cells

The coordinates and attributes of these cells are determined at runtime.
Fire
Represents a burning cell.
Waterbomb
Region that decreases the fire activity.
Ground Agent
Represents a bulldozer, which is able to create a fireline, trough grass or trees. This agents starts in a depot.
Air Agent
Flying agent, drops waterbombs on the fire.
The behaviour of the agents is determined by the controller.

Simulation

The simulation will be modeled using Cellular Automata (4 neighbours, no cyclic boundary conditions). It determines the fireactivity for tree's and grass using the cell's attribute(s). The propagation of the fire will be stochastic.

Controller

The basic task for the controller is to direct all active agents. It calculates subtargets for each agent and generates the most optimal route for the agents. Evalution of subtargets is implemented using neural networks (NN) of which the weights are `trained' using ESP. The shortest route between the subgoals is determined using dynamic path planning algoritmes (implemeted using ''A*'' or ''Dijkstra's kortste pad algoritme'').

General demands

Agents

There will be two kinds of agents, airborne units and ground units.

Ground Agents demands

Air Agents demands

Path Planning

The path planner will plan the path from start location to first subtarget. From there on it will plan from subtarget to subtarget. The path will be optimized to minimalize costs. The demands are listed in ascending order, specific to the costs of the actions.

Userinterface

The application clearly has two modes of operation, learning the agent's NN using ESP and visualizing a single run after the NN are trained. Therefor we will provide two seperate interfaces.

Learning Mode

This interface provides statistical information on the population etc. It also allows modification of the ESP parameters and related parameters such as those of the random world generator. It can be run autonomously and will store the (possibly intermediate) NN and other results of the process for later examination.

Visualization Mode

The userinterface provides a convenient world editor for building customary worlds. It furthermore allows visualization and modification of parameters related to the simulation (wind speed, direction, start point of fire, humidity). This allows modifying (and saving/storing) configurations. These can be used for training new NN (using the ``learning mode'') or for demonstrating existing NN on.

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Requirements Analysis

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Footnotes

... cell.1
This may be misleading because the same word is sometimes used to refer to the concept of to the meeting point between the fire and the yet untouched forest, these being the points where the fire has the highest activity. We will refer to this last concept as `fire-front'.

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Jelle 2003-04-26