Learning tidal currents

潮汐的发生是由于月球和太阳相对于地球的引力运动的变化。由于天文运动是高度可预测的，潮汐也应该是可预测的。这是潮汐能（一种快速发展的可再生能源）的主要优势之一。用于预测潮汐运动的现有方法在预测水位和缓慢移动的水流方面表现得很好，但在我们感兴趣的放置潮汐涡轮机的快速流动的潮汐流类型上往往表现得很差。该项目将通过应用机器学习社区的方法来分析快速流动的潮汐流来解决这个问题。这将产生一种算法，使海洋学和潮汐能界的用户能够大大改善对未来任何一点潮流的预测。因此，可以得到一个强大的预测潮汐流涡轮机的性能。在潮汐流能源快速增长的领域，准确了解潮汐流对于以下方面至关重要：可靠预测能量产量;计算负载和设计涡轮机;以及给予投资者信心。

Tides occur due to the changing gravitational movement of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth. As astronomical movements are highly predictable the tides should also be predictable. This is one of the key advantages of tidal stream energy (a rapidly developing source of renewable energy). The existing methods which are used to predict tidal movements perform very well for predicting water levels and slow moving currents, but often perform very badly on fast flowing tidal streams of the type in which we areinteresting in placing tidal turbines. This project will address this by applying methods from the machine learning community to the analysis of fast flowing tidal streams. This will produce an algorithm which will allow users from the oceanographic and tidal energy community to greatly improve the prediction of tidal currents at any point indefinitely far into the future. Thus a robustprediction of the performance of tidal stream turbines can be obtained. In the rapidly growing area of tidal stream energy, accurate knowledge of the tidal currents is vital for: robust predictions of energy yield; for the calculation of loads and the design of the turbine; and to give confidence to investors.