  A key drawback of the current generation of artificial decision-makers is
that they do not adapt well to changes in unexpected situations. This paper
addresses the situation in which an AI for aerial dog fighting, with tunable
parameters that govern its behavior, will optimize behavior with respect to an
objective function that must be evaluated and learned through simulations. Once
this objective function has been modeled, the agent can then choose its desired
behavior in different situations. Bayesian optimization with a Gaussian Process
surrogate is used as the method for investigating the objective function. One
key benefit is that during optimization the Gaussian Process learns a global
estimate of the true objective function, with predicted outcomes and a
statistical measure of confidence in areas that haven't been investigated yet.
However, standard Bayesian optimization does not perform consistently or
provide an accurate Gaussian Process surrogate function for highly volatile
objective functions. We treat these problems by introducing a novel sampling
technique called Hybrid Repeat/Multi-point Sampling. This technique gives the
AI ability to learn optimum behaviors in a highly uncertain environment. More
importantly, it not only improves the reliability of the optimization, but also
creates a better model of the entire objective surface. With this improved
model the agent is equipped to better adapt behaviors.
