Fast direct and inverse model acquisition by function decomposition

A computational approach to direct and generalized inverse model acquisition is presented. The approach is based on a proposed method to direct model acquisition from partial information. The method decomposes a hyper-space function in one variable functions, simplifying the learning problem. The acquired direct model is then implemented in a tree-like structure that can be used in the inverse sense without additional learning effort. The authors' approach is able to acquire complete models in hyper-spaces requiring only selected data focused in one-dimension sub-spaces, strongly reducing the data acquisition effort. The authors' approach is particularly interesting for applications in robotics. The acquisition of direct models in robotics frequently takes place in high dimension phase spaces. When traditional approximation methods are used, enormous data bases, containing the examples to be interpolated, are required.