Patent ID: 6115700
Filing Date: 2000-09-05
Classification: G06N

Abstract:
A method for providing an estimate of the state of a contact comprising:sensing the state of said contact;generating signals representative of the state of said contact;processing said signals to arrive at estimates of the state of said contact;said processing step comprising applying a simulated annealing algorithm methodology to said signals to generate a contact state estimate solution;said applying step comprising making an initial random guess of said state of said contact;computing the cost of the contact state estimate;randomly generating a small change in the contact state estimate;computing the cost of the new target state estimate;comparing the new target state estimate against a stopping criteria to determine if said stopping criteria has been met; andchanging the simulated annealing temperature if a desired number of iterations has been performed since last temperature update, or incrementing the simulated annealing temperature counter if said desired number of iterations has not been performed.