Intelligent Towing Tank propels human-robot-computer research

In its first year of operation, the Intelligent Towing Tank (ITT) conducted about 100,000 total experiments, essentially completing the equivalent of a PhD student’s five years’ worth of experiments in a matter of weeks. The automated experimental facility, developed in the MIT Sea Grant Hydrodynamics Laboratory, automatically and adaptively performs, analyzes, and designs experiments exploring vortex-induced vibrations (VIVs). Important for engineering offshore ocean structures like marine drilling risers that connect underwater oil wells to the surface, VIVs remain somewhat of a phenomenon to researchers due to the high number of parameters involved. Guided by active learning, the ITT conducts series of experiments wherein the parameters of each next experiment are selected by a computer. Using an “explore-and-exploit” methodology, the system dramatically reduces the number of experiments required to explore and map the complex forces governing VIVs. What began as then-PhD candidate Dixia Fan’s quest to cut back on conducting a Continue reading Intelligent Towing Tank propels human-robot-computer research