Autonomous balloons take flight with artificial intelligence

Project Loon is using balloons such as this to set up an aerial wireless network for telecommunications.Credit: Loon The goal of an autonomous machine is to achieve an objective by making decisions while negotiating a dynamic environment. Given complete knowledge of a system's current state, artificial intelligence and machine learning can excel at this, and even outperform humans at certain tasks -- for example, when playing arcade and turn-based board games1. But beyond the idealized world of games, real-world deployment of automated machines is hampered by environments that can be noisy and chaotic, and which are not adequately observed. The difficulty of devising long-term strategies from incomplete data can also hinder the operation of independent AI agents in real-world challenges. Writing in Nature, Bellemare et al.2 describe a way forward by demonstrating that stratospheric balloons, guided by AI, can pursue a long-term strategy for positioning themselves about a location on the Equator, even when precise knowledge of buffeting winds is not known.