Machine learning strategies for path-planning microswimmers in turbulent flows

Abstract

We develop an adversarial-reinforcement learning scheme for microswimmers in statistically homogeneous and isotropic turbulent fluid flows, in both two and three dimensions. We show that this scheme allows microswimmers to find nontrivial paths, which enable them to reach a target on average in less time than a naive microswimmer, which tries, at any instant of time and at a given position in space, to swim in the direction of the target. We use pseudospectral direct numerical simulations of the two- and three-dimensional (incompressible) Navier-Stokes equations to obtain the turbulent flows. We then introduce passive microswimmers that try to swim along a given direction in these flows; the microswimmers do not affect the flow, but they are advected by it. Two nondimensional control parameters play important roles in our learning scheme: (a) the ratio (V) over tilde (s) of the microswimmer’s bare velocity V-s and the root-mean-square (rms) velocity u(rms), of the turbulent fluid and (b) the product (B) over tilde of the microswimmer-response time B and the rms vorticity omega(rms), of the fluid. We show that the average time required for the microswimmers to reach the target, by using our adversarial-reinforcement learning scheme, eventually reduces below the average time taken by microswimmers that follow the naive strategy.

Publication
PHYSICAL REVIEW E 101, (2020).
Date
Links