New Twist on AI Makes the Most of Sparse Sensor Data

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An innovation in using natural language models brings artificial intelligence to field deployable sensors, including drones. Los Alamos National Laboratory is exploring the AI technology for locating and characterizing orphaned oil and gas wells that emit climate-warming methane (source:  Los Alamos National Laboratory).
An innovation in using natural language models brings artificial intelligence to field deployable sensors, including drones. Los Alamos National Laboratory is exploring the AI technology for locating and characterizing orphaned oil and gas wells that emit climate-warming methane (source: Los Alamos National Laboratory).

December 15, 2023 | Originally published by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) on November 13, 2023

An innovative approach to artificial intelligence (AI) enables reconstructing a broad field of data, such as overall ocean temperature, from a small number of field-deployable sensors using low-powered “edge” computing, with broad applications across industry, science, and medicine.

“We developed a neural network that allows us to represent a large system in a very compact way,” said Javier Santos, a Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher who applies computational science to geophysical problems. “That compactness means it requires fewer computing resources compared to state-of-the-art convolutional neural network architectures, making it well-suited to field deployment on drones, sensor arrays, and other edge-computing applications that put computation closer to its end use.”