Swinging up the Acrobot: an example of intelligent control

Abstract

In our approach, intelligent control integrates the symbolic reasoning of artificial intelligence (AI) into the control procedure. We describe how this can be accomplished by a straightforward abstraction of the conventional notion of the control model. We apply the techniques to the problem of swing-up control of the Acrobot. The resulting explanation-based control strategy is compared with two more-conventionally-derived control strategies. We briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the new approach.