Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05236



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 12:35:08 -0400
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Apples and Oranges (was: Smart bodies???)




Richard Caudle wrote:

> Bob Shannon wrote: > > Wait a minute! automated systems are able to
> adapt, at least some
> > > are, if thats how they are designed and programmed. We're at
> specific and non-specific again. We have robotic welders that have
> what the manufacturer calls 'adaptive' qualities. They are far from
> adaptive. The conditions must be 98% perfect for the machine to
> function at all! There's a set of specific rules that the controller
> looks at and if anything outside of that comes into the fore, then the
> machine cannot deal with it. I think that Terry's evolving network is
> the closest thing that I've seen in a long while to adaptation...or at
> least a new rule set that allows the 'bot to "think outside the
> box". BTW...Terry, could you post a flowchart or psudeocode for your
> evolving network? I'm using a BSII-SX and not sure how the PIC code
> goes.
>
> The famous 'Genghis' uses adaptive control systems. So do many of my
> robots.
> There is a large body of research on this type of control, and the
> vast majority is done
> with CPU based controllers. It also works a lot better than a lot of
> the BEAM community
> would wish to beleive.
>
> While your welder may not be a good example of this, I would not want
> people to think that BEAM
> is better at this than CPU based controllers, because thats simply
> untrue.
>
> Your welder is not a learning machine, so this really is a case of
> apples and oranges.
> Comapre any BEAM design against a modern learning machine, and you wil
> learn that
> BEAM offers no clear advantage at all. In fact, the design theory
> problem is a huge
> disadvantage to current BEAM tech.
>
> I think what Terry's machine shows us is that what makes BEAM work as
> well as it does
> is not the basic technology of BEAM at all, nor anything unique to
> BEAM technology.


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