Patent ID: 8024052

Claim:
In a system controlling the output of a device, a method comprising: measuring a plurality of control efforts applied to a device over a plurality of intervals; measuring a plurality of output change amounts of the device that correspond to the applied plurality of control efforts; mapping the plurality of output change amounts directly to the plurality of control efforts in a control map, wherein mapping the plurality of output change amounts further comprises: selecting a set of points, each point defined as an ordered N-tuple where: N is a positive integer greater than or equal to two; one element of the N-tuple is indicative of an amount of device output change; another element of the N-tuple is indicative of an amount of control effort; and N−2 additional elements of the N-tuple are indicative of system state prior to application of an amount of control effort; repeating, until a calculated control error is within a tolerance of a desired output: calculating control error as a difference between desired and present output; reading, by interpolation or otherwise, an amount of control effort from the control map using the control error as an index indicative of desired change in output; applying the amount of control effort thus read to the device; waiting a sufficiently long interval for the transient, if any, resulting from the effort to subside; calculating control error anew; and testing whether the newly calculated control error is within the tolerance of the desired output; and calculating a preferred intra-segment map update by: measuring residual error as the difference between desired output and device output after an amount of control effort has been applied and the resulting transient, if any, has subsided; evaluating control effort sensitivity as an estimated partial derivative of a differential amount of control effort with respect to a differential amount of device output change evaluated using mapped points surrounding the location in the map corresponding to the amount of output change equal to or approximately matching the control error prior to the application of the control effort; and calculating a preferred intra-sequent map update as the product of the measured residual error and the control effort sensitivity.