There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Machine learning

[신간의 별자리x] 우리/미술, 그리고 ‘슬픔의 박물관’

It is demonstrated that neural networks can be used effectively for the identification and control of nonlinear dynamical systems. The emphasis is on models for both identification and control. Static and dynamic backpropagation methods for the adjustment of parameters are discussed. In the models that are introduced, multilayer and recurrent networks are interconnected in novel configurations, and hence there is a real need to study them in a unified fashion. Simulation results reveal that the identification and adaptive control schemes suggested are practically feasible. Basic concepts and definitions are introduced throughout, and theoretical questions that have to be addressed are also described. >

Identification and control of dynamical systems using neural networks

A direct adaptive tracking control architecture is proposed and evaluated for a class of continuous-time nonlinear dynamic systems for which an explicit linear parameterization of the uncertainty in the dynamics is either unknown or impossible. The architecture uses a network of Gaussian radial basis functions to adaptively compensate for the plant nonlinearities. Under mild assumptions about the degree of smoothness exhibit by the nonlinear functions, the algorithm is proven to be globally stable, with tracking errors converging to a neighborhood of zero. A constructive procedure is detailed, which directly translates the assumed smoothness properties of the nonlinearities involved into a specification of the network required to represent the plant to a chosen degree of accuracy. A stable weight adjustment mechanism is determined using Lyapunov theory. The network construction and performance of the resulting controller are illustrated through simulations with example systems. >

Gaussian networks for direct adaptive control

Stability theory simple adaptive systems adaptive observers the control problem persistent excitation error models robust adaptive control the control problem - relaxation of assumptions multivariable adaptive systems applications of adaptive control.

Stable Adaptive Systems

A new adaptive law motivated by the work of loannou and Kokotovic (1983) is proposed for the robust adaptive control of plants with unknown parameters. In this adaptive law the output error plays a dual role in the adjustment of the control parameter vector. The advantages of using the adaptive law over others proposed in the literature are discussed. In the ideal case the adaptive system has bounded solutions; in addition, the origin of the error equations is exponentially stable when the reference input is persistently exciting and has a sufficiently large amplitude. The adaptive system is also shown to be robust under bounded external disturbances. Finally, it is shown that, by suitably modifying the adaptive law, the overall system can be made robust in the presence of a class of unmodeled dynamics of the plant. Simulation results are presented throughout the paper to complement the theoretical developments.

A new adaptive law for robust adaptation without persistent excitation

Response of a laminar premixed flame to flow oscillations: A kinematic model and thermoacoustic instability results

This brief describes the application of direct and indirect model reference adaptive control to a lightweight low-cost quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle platform. A baseline trajectory tracking controller is augmented by an adaptive controller. The approach is validated using simulations and flight tested in an indoor test facility. The adaptive controller is found to offer increased robustness to parametric uncertainties. In particular, it is found to be effective in mitigating the effects of a loss-of-thrust anomaly, which may occur due to component failure or physical damage. The design of the adaptive controller is presented, followed by a comparison of flight test results using the existing linear and augmented adaptive controllers.

Adaptive Control of Quadrotor UAVs: A Design Trade Study With Flight Evaluations

In this paper, we introduce two distinct types of nonlinear dynamical systems, /spl Tscr//sub 1/ and /spl Tscr//sub 2/, both of which possess a triangular structure. It is shown that all systems belonging to /spl Tscr//sub 1/ can be made stable and that if they belong to a subclass /spl Tscr//sub 1s/, the stability holds globally. A precise characterization of the general class of nonlinear systems transformable to /spl Tscr//sub 1/ is carried out. The second class, /spl Tscr//sub 2/, corresponds to a set of second-order nonlinear differential equations and is motivated by problems that occur in mechanical systems. It is shown that global tracking can be achieved for all systems in /spl Tscr//sub 2/. A constructive approach is used in all cases to develop the adaptive controller, and both stabilization and tracking are shown to be realizable. Simple examples are given to illustrate the different classes of nonlinear systems as well as the idea behind the approach used to stabilize them. >

Anuradha M. Annaswamy

Papers

Stable Adaptive Systems

A new adaptive law for robust adaptation without persistent excitation

Response of a laminar premixed flame to flow oscillations: A kinematic model and thermoacoustic instability results

Adaptive Control of Quadrotor UAVs: A Design Trade Study With Flight Evaluations

Adaptive control of nonlinear systems with a triangular structure