Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation


  Orchestrating Reasoning for Automated System Identification

Reinhard Stolle
Xerox PARC
Palo Alto, CA
www.ksl.stanford.edu/~stolle

I will describe the program PRET which automates system identification, the process of finding a mathematical model of a dynamical black-box system. PRET performs both structural identification and parameter estimation by integrating several reasoning modes: qualitative reasoning, qualitative simulation, numerical simulation, geometric reasoning, constraint reasoning, SLD-based resolution, reasoning with abstraction levels, declarative meta-level control, and a simple form of truth maintenance. Unlike other modeling programs that map structural or functional descriptions to model fragments, PRET combines hypotheses about the mathematics involved into candidate models that are intelligently tested against observations about the target system. Typically, in the hierarchy from more-abstract to less-abstract models, the model of choice is the one that is just detailed enough to account for the properties and perspectives of interest for the task at hand. A key observation about the modeling process is the following. Not only is the resulting model as abstract as possible but also the reasoning during model construction takes place at the highest possible level at any time. I will present two examples of system identification tasks that this automated modeling tool has successfully performed. The first, a simple linear system, was chosen because it facilitates a brief and clear presentation of PRET's features and reasoning techniques. In the second example, a difficult real-world modeling task, I show how PRET models a radio-controlled car used in the University of British Columbia's soccer-playing robot project.


(Joint work with Elizabeth Bradley and Matt Easley, University of Colorado.)


Date: Thurs., Feb 22

Time: 4:15-5:30PM

Place: Cordura 100


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