Tad Hogg and Bernardo A. Huberman
Dynamics of Computation Group
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Palo Alto, CA 94304
hogg@parc.xerox.com,
huberman@parc.xerox.com
Xerox PARC technical report, 1996 (Los Alamos preprint cond-mat/9611024)
We study the behavior of several organizations for distributed control
of unstable physical systems and show how a hierarchical organization is
a reasonable compromise between rapid local responses with simple
communication and the use of global knowledge. This holds not only in
ideal situations but also when imperfections and delays are present in
the system. We also introduce a new control organization, the
multihierarchy, and show it is better than a hierarchy in achieving
stability. The multihierarchy also has a position invariant response
that can control disturbances at the appropriate scale and location.
postcript (596K)
Also available as a Los Alamos preprint