MSU intern makes wave at NRL

WASHINGTON – A U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) college intern from Mississippi State University has used machine learning to improve Navy wave forecasting. Braedon Kimball, a senior software engineering major at MSU’s Bagley College of Engineering, joined NRL through the Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP). He learned about neural networks and data framing by using Python software, which helps programmers write clear, logical code for small- and large-scale projects at NRL’s Ocean Sciences Division. This research could help the Navy provide more accurate wave forecasting, as well as a foundation of machine learning that could be extensible to other forecasting tasks. “We aim to improve on numerical wave-forecast models by using machine learning to make predictions,” Kimball said. “The methods used to accomplish this were to train an artificial neural network using historical observations and model data with the effect of improving existing model predictions in areas the model does not normally do well.” Kimball’s NREIP mentor, James Dykes, a physical scientist with NRL’s Ocean Sciences Division at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi said neural networks show promise to improve weather and wave forecasting with numerical models. Dykes said the research is groundbreaking. “In the future, this work will be a launching point for other weather prediction neural networks being expanded into other aspects of climate data,” Kimball said. (Source: US Navy 12/08/20) Mississippi State Intern Makes Waves With Machine Learning at Naval Research Laboratory > United States Navy > display-pressreleases