Reliable plan selection by intelligent machines

by John E. McInroy

This book derives techniques which allow reliable plans to be automatically selected by intelligent machines. It concentrates on the uncertainty analysis of candidate plans so that a highly reliable candidate may be identified and used. For robotic components, such as a particular vision algorithm for pose estimation or a joint controller, methods are explained for directly calculating the reliability. However, these methods become excessively complex when several components are used together to complete a plan. Consequently, entropy minimization techniques are used to estimate which complex tasks will be performed reliably. The book first develops tools for directly calculating the reliability of sub-systems, and methods of using entropy minimization to greatly facilitate the analysis are explained. Since these sub-systems are used together to accomplish complex tasks, the book then explains how complex tasks can be efficiently evaluated.