ENTRIES TAGGED "feedback control"
Favoring behavior over environment
In a series of posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6), we have introduced the idea of feedback control as a way to keep complex systems on track, even when subject to uncertainty and change.
It is easy to be confused at this point, and to think that feedback is nothing more than an “adaptive system” that can modify its behavior in response to changes in its environment. But that would not be right. It depends on what quantity you are monitoring! A feedback system does not respond to changes in the environment—a feedback system changes specifically in response to changes in its own behavior. That’s a big difference.
Maintaining a desired behavior
In two previous posts (Part 1 and Part 2) we introduced the idea of feedback control. The basic idea is that we can keep a system (any system!) on track, by constantly monitoring its actual behavior, so that we can apply corrective actions to the system’s input, to “nudge” it back on target, if it ever begins to go astray.
This begs the question: Why should we, as programmers, software engineers, and system administrator care? What’s in it for us?