Synthesis of Topology for a PID (Proportional, Integrative, and Derivative) Controller
(A Human-Competitive Result Produced by Genetic Programming)
The Result
Genetic programming evolved a PID (proportional, integrative, and derivative) controller for two families of plants as described in Section 9.2 of Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence (Koza, Keane, Streeter, Mydlowec, Yu, and Lanza 2003).
Basis for Claim of Human-Competitiveness
The PID controller was patented in 1939 by Albert Callender and Allan Stevenson of Imperial Chemical Limited of Northwich, England (Callender and Stevenson 1939). The PID controller was an enormous improvement over previous manual and automatic methods for control.
The genetically evolved controller has the essential features of, and infringes, the Callender and Stevenson patent (1939).
Referring to the eight criteria in table 1.2 of Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence (Koza, Keane, Streeter, Mydlowec, Yu, and Lanza 2003) for establishing that an automatically created result is competitive with a human-produced result, the rediscovery by genetic programming of a controller that infringes the claims of the 1939 Callender and Stevenson patent satisfies the following two of the eight criteria:
(A) The result was patented as an invention in the past, is an improvement over a patented invention, or would qualify today as a patentable new invention.
(F) The result is equal to or better than a result that was considered an achievement in its field at the time it was first discovered.
The rediscovery by genetic programming of the PID controller came about six decades after Callender and Stevenson received a patent for their invention. Nonetheless, the fact that the original human-designed version satisfied the criteria for patent-worthiness of both the British and U.S. Patent Offices means that the genetically evolved duplicate would also have satisfied the criteria for patent-worthiness (if only it had arrived earlier than the patent application by Callender and Stevenson).
References
Callender, Albert and Stevenson, Allan Brown. 1939. Automatic Control of Variable Physical Characteristics. U.S. patent 2,175,985. Filed February 17, 1936 in the United States. Filed February 13, 1935 in Great Britain. Issued October 10, 1939 in the United States.
Koza, John R., Keane, Martin A., Streeter, Matthew J., Mydlowec, William, Yu, Jessen, and Lanza, Guido. 2003. Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
· The home page of Genetic Programming Inc. at www.genetic-programming.com.
· For information about the field of genetic programming and the field of genetic and evolutionary computation, visit www.genetic-programming.org
· The home page of John R. Koza at Genetic Programming Inc. (including online versions of most published papers) and the home page of John R. Koza at Stanford University
· For information about John Koza’s course on genetic algorithms and genetic programming at Stanford University
· Information about the 1992
book Genetic
Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection,
the 1994 book Genetic
Programming II: Automatic Discovery of Reusable Programs, the 1999
book Genetic
Programming III: Darwinian Invention and Problem Solving, and the
2003 book Genetic
Programming IV: Routine
Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence. Click here to read chapter 1 of Genetic
Programming IV book in PDF format.
· 3,440
published papers on genetic programming (as of November 28, 2003) in a
searchable bibliography (with many on-line versions of papers) by over 880
authors maintained by William Langdon’s and Steven M. Gustafson.
· For information on the Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines journal published by Kluwer Academic Publishers
· For information on the Genetic Programming book series from Kluwer Academic Publishers, see the Call For Book Proposals
· For information about the annual Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference (which includes the annual GP conference) to be held on June 26–30, 2004 (Saturday – Wednesday) in Seattle and its sponsoring organization, the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (ISGEC). For information about the annual Euro-Genetic-Programming Conference to be held on April 5-7, 2004 (Monday – Wednesday) at the University of Coimbra in Coimbra Portugal. For information about the 2003 and 2004 Genetic Programming Theory and Practice (GPTP) workshops held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For information about Asia-Pacific Workshop on Genetic Programming (ASPGP03) held in Canberra, Australia on December 8, 2003. For information about the annual NASA/DoD Conference on Evolvable Hardware Conference (EH) to be held on June 24-26 (Thursday-Saturday), 2004 in Seattle.
Last updated on December 27, 2003