From knowledge-based to skill-based systems: Sailing as a machine learning challenge

Abstract

This paper describes the Robosail project. It started in 1997 with the aim to build a self-learning auto pilot for a single handed sailing yacht. The goal was to make an adaptive system that would help a single handed sailor to go faster on average in a race. Presently, after five years of development and a number of sea trials, we have a commercial system available (www.robosail.com). It is a hybrid system using agent technology, machine learning, data mining and rule-based reasoning. Apart from describing the system we try to generalize our findings, and argue that sailing is an interesting paradigm for a class of hybrid systems that one could call Skill-based Systems.