The field of science has received many benefits from the use of AI. Satellites and weather predictors are two examples of Artificial Intelligence in science.
Satellites that orbit the earth contain AI that detects and diagnoses failures and errors that ground control can fix or work around. Its biggest job is troubleshooting. With the new technology, the program can monitor the software that runs the satellite’s autonomous imaging system. The AI program, Livingstone Version 2, contains a computerized model of how the satellite is supposed to work. If the actual performance is different from the ideal performance, it can send a report containing information about the failure back to a team on Earth. Without the Artificial Intelligence searching for these problems, finding them would be extremely difficult. Because spaceships have many common parts, Livingstone can be reprogrammed for use in other forms of spacecraft fairly easily. As software intricacy increases, programs like Livingstone will find use in other, more common fields as well.
In addition, Artificial Intelligence can use satellite pictures and mathematical models to look at the ocean and better predict the weather. Visible masses of water, or fronts, have distinct properties that make each mass different from the others. The ability of neural networks to deal with imprecise data makes them best able to deal with the unpredictable movements and temperatures of the fronts, though they still don't work over a long period of time. The computer can collect raw data such as the sea's density, salinity, and temperature at any given spot, from sensors placed in the ocean. With these, it can put together a model of the ocean and its movements, predicting where each front will move next. The ultimate goal of this project is to make a computer able to predict continuously the weather at any point over the ocean and without human intervention.
Satellite observations of the world’s oceans are created with lasers, radars, and infrared scanning devices. This can be somewhat difficult as the electromagnetic waves cannot penetrate the water well, but this is overcome with data recorded from the upper layers of the oceans and provides aid to oceanographers in the navigation of shipping vessels.
The first satellite, which aided in providing oceanographers with a ‘map’ of the ocean floor, was the Seasat-A. This was created in the 1970’s, and it produced a flight path in which it was able to circumnavigate the earth over a period of time, developing a visible picture of the ocean floor. The seafloor height was measured every few kilometers, and the data complied by the satellite was used to compile a global map of the surface of the sea and the seafloor. The trenches and ridges on the surface of the seafloor have an effect on the gravitational effects of the sea surface. The future of physical oceanography was greatly increased with the establishment of Seasat-A.
See also: AI Goes to War , Robot Vision