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September 25, 2018, 8:57:13 MDT

Thermals or Dynamic Soaring?

The picture contradicts the text

Dutcher Sterling|Jay Devorak

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180920101605.htm

The words "fly like an eagle" are famously part of a song, but they may also be words that make some scientists scratch their heads. Especially when it comes to soaring birds like eagles, falcons and hawks, who seem to ascend to great heights over hills, canyons and mountain tops with ease. Scientists realize that upward currents of warm air assist the birds in their flight, but they don't know how the birds find and navigate these thermal plumes.

To figure it out, researchers from the University of California San Diego used reinforcement learning to train gliders to autonomously navigate atmospheric thermals, soaring to heights of 700 meters--nearly 2,300 feet. The novel research results, published in the Sept. 19 issue of Nature, highlight the role of vertical wind accelerations and roll-wise torques as viable biological cues for soaring birds. The findings also provide a navigational strategy that directly applies to the development of autonomous soaring vehicles, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

"This paper is an important step toward artificial intelligence--how to autonomously soar in constantly shifting thermals like a bird. I was surprised that relatively little learning was needed to achieve expert performance," said Terry Sejnowski, a member of the research team from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and UC San Diego's Division of Biological Sciences.

A navigational strategy was determined solely from the gliders' pooled experiences collected over several days in the field using exploratory behavioral strategies. The strategies relied on new on-board methods, developed in the course of the research, to accurately estimate the gliders' local vertical wind accelerations and the roll-wise torques, which served as navigational cues.

Thanks to Jay Devorak, Miles Fragerlie and Dutcher Sterling.

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