A recursively controlled production system : an implementation of a theory

Production Systems are an inherently nondeterministic computational model used in the parsing of languages, in artificial intelligence research, and in formal computability theory. For practical purposes, a number of schemes have been proposed to effect the nondeterministic choice of productions. These control techniques are often domain dependent and imbedded in the interpreter; thus, reducing the generality and sometimes even the power of the model. This thesis is concerned with a production system which recursively determines the set of rules to consider at the next higher level. Issues of metaknowledge representation and recursive control structures are discussed. The technique is implemented in a recursively controlled production system which is used to automatically program a robot arm to accomplish an electronic wire-wrapping task.Science, Faculty ofComputer Science, Department ofGraduat