METHOD AND APPARATUS USING A DECISION TREE IN AN ADJUNCT SYSTEM COOPERATING WITH ANOTHER PHYSICAL SYSTEM

A method and apparatus for use in an adjunct system, such as a control system, operating in cooperation with a linear or non-linear physical system, such as a motor. The physical system performs a function and produces data that are monitored, and attribute values, which may be continuous valued, and system state information are produced from the data. For example, the attributes may include various motor currents and the system state information may include the motor flux. A controller and a decision tree produce decisions and commands to assist the physical system in performing its function. Certain decisions made by the decision tree are identified as being bad decisions, and the decision tree is adapted to produce a decision tree that has improved performance. Preferably, the adaptation method maintains the size of the adapted decision tree within a constant limit during the adaptation, and the adaptation is repetitively performed to successively produce new currently active decision trees.