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…

by Susan Jane Dwyer., Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1991., Includes bibliographical references (p. 280-289).

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…

(cont.) In the process, this thesis intervenes in social theoretical debates not simply around the nature and production of knowledge and value, but also around the place of larger belief-systems - relating to religion, nation and ethics - in such…

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…

This thesis proposes a miethodology for the design of man-machine interfaces by combining top-down and bottom-up processes in vision. From a computational perspective, we propose that the scientific-cognitive question of combining top-down and bottom-up knowledge is similar to the engineering…

This paper addresses the problem of recovering relative structure, in the form of an invariant, referred to as projective structure, from two views of a 3D scene. The invariant structure is computed without any prior knowledge of camera geometry, or…

The design of the control laws governing the behavior of individual agents is crucial for the successful development of cooperative agent teams. These control laws may utilize a combination of local and/or global knowledge to achieve the resulting group behavior.…