This paper analyzes the suitability of reinforcement learning (RL) for both programming and adapting situated agents. We discuss two RL algorithms: Q-learning and the Bucket Brigade. We introduce a special case of the Bucket Brigade, and analyze and compare its…

We develop a novel autonomous control synthesis strategy called Phase Space Navigator for the automatic synthesis of nonlinear control systems. The Phase Space Navigator generates global control laws by synthesizing flow shapes of dynamical systems and planning and navigating system…

We develop a qualitative method for understanding and representing phase space structures of complex systems and demonstrate the method with a program, MAPS --- Modeler and Analyzer for Phase Spaces, using deep domain knowledge of dynamical system theory. Given a…

It is obvious to anyone familiar with the rules of the game of chess that a king on an empty board can reach every square. It is true, but not obvious, that a knight can reach every square. Why is…

We describe the automatic synthesis of a global nonlinear controller for stabilizing a magnetic levitation system. The synthesized control system can stabilize the maglev vehicle with large initial displacements from an equilibrium, and possesses a much larger operating region than…

Build is a tool for keeping modular systems in a consistent state by managing the construction tasks (e.g. compilation, linking, etc.) associated with such systems. It employs a user supplied system model and a procedural description of a task to…

This paper reports work in progress on an experimental text editor called CREF, the Cross Referenced Editing Facility. CREF deals with chunks of text, called segments, which may have associated features such as keywords or various kinds of links to…

Well-known methods for solving the shape-from-shading problem require knowledge of the reflectance map. Here we show how the shape-from-shading problem can be solved when the reflectance map is not available, but is known to have a given form with some…

Morphological analysis requires knowledge of the stems, affixes, combnatory patterns, and spelling-change processes of a language. The computational difficulty of the task can be clarified by investigating the computational characteristics of specific models of morphologial processing. The use of finite-state…

Intelligent agents in the physical world must work from incomplete information due to partial knowledge and limited resources. An agent copes with these limitations by applying rules of conjecture to make reasonable assumptions about what is known. Circumscription, proposed by…