Synthesis of Topology for a PID-D2 (Proportional, Integrative, Derivative, and Second Derivative) Controller
(A Human-Competitive Result Produced by Genetic Programming)
The Result
Genetic programming evolved a PID-D2 (proportional, integrative, derivative, and second derivative) controller for a two-lag plant as described in Section 3.7 of Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence (Koza, Keane, Streeter, Mydlowec, Yu, and Lanza 2003).
Basis for Claim of Human-Competitiveness
Harry Jones of The Brown Instrument Company of Philadelphia patented the PID-D2 controller topology in 1942. The PID-D2 controller was an improvement over the PID controller patented by Callender and Stevenson in 1939 (discussed in section 3.3 of Genetic Programming IV: Routine Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence).
The genetically evolved controller has the essential features of, and infringes, the Jones patent (1942).
As Jones (1942) states,
“A … specific object of the invention is to provide electrical control apparatus … wherein the rate of application of the controlling medium may be effected in accordance with or in response to the first, second, and high derivatives of the magnitude of the condition with respect to time, as desired.”
Claim 38 of the Jones 1942 patent states,
“In a control system, an electrical network, means to adjust said network in response to changes in a variable condition to be controlled, control means responsive to network adjustments to control said condition, reset means including a reactance in said network adapted following an adjustment of said network by said first means to initiate an additional network adjustment in the same sense, and rate control means included in said network adapted to control the effect of the first mentioned adjustment in accordance with the second or higher derivative of the magnitude of the condition with respect to time.”
Because the genetically evolved controller has proportional, integrative, derivative, and second derivative blocks, it infringes the 1942 Jones patent. That is, the genetically evolved controller reads on all elements of claim 38.
The legal criteria for obtaining a U.S. patent are that the proposed invention be “new,” “useful,” “improved,” and that
“¼ the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would [not] have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.” (35 United States Code 103a)
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 the PID-D2 controller 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-D2 controller came about six decades after Jones received a patent for his invention. Nonetheless, the fact that the original human-designed version satisfied the Patent Office’s criteria for patent-worthiness means that the genetically evolved duplicate would also have satisfied the Patent Office’s criteria for patent-worthiness (if only it had arrived earlier than Jones’ patent application).
References
Jones, Harry S. 1942. Control Apparatus. U.S. patent 2,282,726. Filed October 25, 1939. Issued May 12, 1942.
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