ASYS recovers known analytical PDE forms and generates new interpretable symbolic approximations, such as a geometric interface formula for 2D Allen-Cahn and a nine-parameter contraction law for Keller-Segel blow-up, via agent-guided evolutionary search on differentiable programs.
Self-Evolving Scientific Agent Discovers Generalizable Physically-Reasoned Fluid Control
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abstract
While data-intensive deep reinforcement learning can optimize complex control policies, scientific discovery in physical systems fundamentally requires an interpretable chain of reasoning that connects physical evidence to structured control architectures. Here, we present a self-evolving scientific-agent workflow, driven by large language models and iterative code generation, that automates controller construction while preserving strict interpretability and rigorous physical reasoning. Instead of adjusting weights, the agent deploys candidate strategies into physical simulations, actively diagnoses dynamic behaviors from multimodal evidence, and translates these observations into progressive source-code refinements. We demonstrate this framework on a highly non-linear fluid-structure interaction problem: an underactuated, two-joint dogfish swimmer tasked with spatial target reaching using only joint angular accelerations. Starting from a propulsive seed policy that exhibits a one-sided steering bias, the agent autonomously discovers and refines a unified controller that robustly captures all canonical targets. Remarkably, without any retraining or target-specific branching, the synthesized control policy generalizes to unseen static targets and dynamically curved pursuit trajectories. The auditable evolve log reveals an emergent control architecture built upon traveling-wave propulsion, body-frame target guidance, yaw-rate feedback, signed mean-tail curvature, and adaptive cadence relief. Our results show that an autonomous scientific agent can successfully transform accumulated physical evidence into robust, mathematically readable control policy, while maintaining a fully traceable process of scientific discovery.
fields
cs.LG 1years
2026 1verdicts
UNVERDICTED 1representative citing papers
citing papers explorer
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Agentic Symbolic Search: Characterizing PDEs Beyond Hand-crafted Expressions, Meshes, and Neural Networks
ASYS recovers known analytical PDE forms and generates new interpretable symbolic approximations, such as a geometric interface formula for 2D Allen-Cahn and a nine-parameter contraction law for Keller-Segel blow-up, via agent-guided evolutionary search on differentiable programs.