Two Reasons Why a Controls Laboratory Needs an Analog Computer

Science and technology advance neither steadily nor continuously. Concepts deemed obsolete and confined to oblivion find their niche in new developments. Discarded old methods revive as the key ingredients to new designs. Analog computing was the birthplace of two important technologies: Computer simulation, as applied to system design, was founded. The operational amplifier, to become the basis for modern linear circuitry, was perfected. Valuable as it was, analog simulation´s quasi-hardware approach to analysis aggravated users as much as it aided them. When digital simulation languages arrived, simulation engineers readily adopted them. When the microprocessor transformed digital computers into inexpensive circuit components (more like gates, flip-flops, amplifiers, etc. than computers,) there arose unlimited prospects for digital control. But, the discrete digital and continuous analog worlds are not compatible. Timing discontinuities and variable resolution limitations create problems. Control system designs, especially microprocessor based ones, need laboratory development. For hands-on testing, the analog computer is as handy an instrument as a controls engineer could have. Its two unique and valuable functions are: Simulator of Systems to be Controlled ... The electrical analogs of physical models, analog computer simulations offer predictable yet realistic representations of mechanisms and processes to be controlled. Programmable Linear Circuits Manifold... The terminal points for high quality, linear circuit devices, analog computer patch panels offer the only formal means of programing linear signal processing, interface and control circuits. This paper offers a discussion of these two analog computing uses.