Glass-Box Deep Reinforcement Learning for High-Speed Flow Control

Ameya D. Jagtap

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is challenging long-held assumptions in active flow control. By learning directly from interaction with a flow, DRL agents can find actuation strategies for nonlinear, unsteady flows without explicit models, often exploiting mechanisms that classical control would not anticipate. High-speed flows are a demanding test of this promise: shocks, shock/boundary-layer interactions, transition, aerothermal loading and microsecond-scale dynamics strain both algorithms and hardware. Yet most demonstrations remain idealized, low-speed simulations with limited evidence of robustness, interpretability, transferability or experimental deployment. In this perspective, we examine what constrains DRL-based high-speed flow control, including compressible simulation cost and fidelity, data efficiency, sensing in extreme environments, reward design, explainability, and generalization across Mach and Reynolds number. We argue that these limits reflect a tension between data-driven optimization and the structured physics, constraints and uncertainties of real flows. We then highlight where DRL may go beyond conventional approaches: adaptive control of shock-induced…