Decision Support for Security: A Mixed Reality Approach to Bioterror Preparedness and Response

Abstract

The Purdue Homeland Security Institute assisted in a live bioterrorism response exercise organized by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security and Jennings County at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center. A simulation environment is developed to complement the live exercise. In this mixed reality environment, actions and outcomes in the live exercise influence the simulated population, and the actions and outcomes of the simulation affect the live exercise. The simulation modeled the public health aspect of the virtual population as well as a public approval rating, giving a measure of support for the decisions and actions the government is taking on their behalf. The simulation provides the capability to analyze the impact of the crisis event as well as the government response. Furthermore, the simulation allows us to scale the scenario to a much larger geographical area than possible with just a live exercise, thereby allowing key decision makers to keep the bigger picture in mind. The simulation can execute faster than real time, allowing the participants to analyze the long-term impacts of their actions. The simulation also provides the ability to analyze possible future implications of current actions, or to go back and retry the response to achieve better results.