Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!kth!sunic!Urd!newsuser
From: newsuser@LTH.Se (LTH network news server)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
Keywords: Feedback Loop, Dead Reckoning, Short Trips
Message-ID: <1989May17.164126.10625@LTH.Se>
Date: 17 May 89 15:41:26 GMT
References: <10333@ihlpb.ATT.COM> <3850@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <387@nbires.nbi.com> <17754@cup.portal.com> <52019@linus.UUCP> <881@maestro.htsa.aha.nl> <53228@linus.UUCP> <904@maestro.htsa.aha.nl>
Reply-To: janeric@Control.LTH.Se (Jan Eric Larsson)
Organization: Dept. of Automatic Control, Lund Inst. of Technology, Sweden
Lines: 29

In article ... Frans van Otten writes:

>I wrote:
>... if you have a very accurate map ... you can calculate exactly
>what will happen ... Or is the driving not called "controlling"
>in this case ?
>
>Barry Kort responded:
>
>... after a while, you will no longer have an accurate estimate
>of your actual location on the terrain ...
>
>It is a good point, but for short trips the accuracy may be
>sufficient.  So I ask my question again:  Is the driving not
>(limited) controlling in the short-trip case ?

In control theory, there is open-loop and closed-loop control.
Sometimes open-loop control is useful, but when disturbances are
present, it usually won't work. Closed-loop control is also called
feedback control. If the disturbances are known beforehand or can
be measured, the controller may compensate for them. This is called
feed-forward control, and is sometimes combined with feedback. All
of this, and more, is control, i.e., belongs to control theory.

-- 
Jan Eric Larsson                      JanEric@Control.LTH.Se      +46 46 108795
Department of Automatic Control
Lund Institute of Technology         "We watched the thermocouples dance to the
Box 118, S-221 00 LUND, Sweden        spirited tunes of a high frequency band."