New project brings AI to environmental research in the field

A new 30-foot tower has sprouted on the edge of The Ohio State University Airport, but it has nothing to do with directing the thousands of planes that take off and land there each year. Instead, this tower is the focal point of an Ohio State research project that will explore using artificial intelligence and a variety of sensors to monitor environmental conditions on a minute-to-minute basis. A key part of the project is the use of machine learning to interpret the data as it is collected, said Tanya Berger-Wolf, director of Ohio State's Translational Data Analytics Institute (TDAI) and the leader of the project. "This is a unique opportunity for our researchers to help understand environmental conditions in urban areas, such as carbon emissions, noise and air pollution, and how it changes in real time," Berger-Wolf said. "We will use artificial intelligence and machine learning models to take all the complex information we collect and get insight out of the data, such as the impact of emissions from the airplanes on the local environment."