Convergence Properties of Associative Memory Storage for Learning Control Systems

First, the cerebellar model articulation controller (CMAC), invented in the early 1970s by J S Albus, and the associative memory system (AMS), developed for learning control systems by H Tolle, E Ersü and J Militzer in the early 1980s, are briefly described. The underlying mathematics of the AMS learning or training algorithm is then given with a geometrical interpretation from which its convergence properties may be deduced. These are illustrated for some simple cases.

The original algorithm devised by Albus is very simple to compute but is slow to converge, and the second part of the paper investigates various methods of speeding up the algorithm. From an application of these new algorithms to test cases one is strongly recommended for further evaluation.

The results reported here are of relevance also to the topical and rapidly growing field of neural computing.