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Feedback Control: an Invisible Thread in the History of Technology

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Feedback Control: an Invisible Thread in the History of Technology COREL By Dennis S. Bernstein he history of technology is a rich and fascinat- The Escapement ing subject, combining engineering with eco- For Mercury there is, beyond the correction at leap nomic, social, and political factors. Technology year, provision for a secondary correction after 144 seems to advance in waves. Small advances in years by setting the wheel M forward 1 tooth. In the ar- science and technology accumulate slowly, gument of Mercury there is an annual deficit of 42′5″, sometimes over long periods of time, until a so that the dial should be set forward 2/3° annually critical level of technological success and economic advan- with a residual correction of 1° in 29 years. Ttage is achieved. The last century witnessed several of these — Giovanni di Dondi, describing the proce- waves: automobiles, radio, aircraft, television, and comput- dure for maintaining his astronomical clock ers, each of which had a profound effect on civilization. completed in 1364 [Gimpel, 1976, p. 165] Woven into the rich fabric of technological history is an The Kelantese approach to time is typified by their co- invisible thread that has had a profound effect on each of conut clocks—an invention they use as a timer for these waves and earlier ones as well. This thread is the idea sporting competitions. This clock consists of a half co- of feedback control. Like all ideas, feedback control impacts conut shell with a small hole in its center that sits in a technology only when it is embodied in technology; it is not pail of water. Intervals are measured by the time it tied to any specific technological innovation or invention. takes the shell to fill with water and then sink—usually The purpose of this article is to describe technological in- about three to five minutes. The Kelantese recognize novations that either use feedback control or allow feedback that the clock is inexact, but they choose it over the control to be exploited. While remarkable in their simplicity, wristwatches they own. these inventions are profound in their impact on technology. —[Levine, 1997, p. 93] In fact, we shall show that these innovations played a crucial In the early 15th century, the Western world was only role in facilitating the truly great waves of technological and dimly aware of the outlines of the world at large. As sailing scientific development, namely, the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Age of Aviation, the Space Age, and The author ([email protected]) is with the Aerospace Engi- the Age of Electronics. These innovations are the escape- neering Department, 1320 Beal St., University of Michigan, Ann Ar- ment, the governor, the aileron, the gyro, and the amplifier. bor, MI 48109, U.S.A. 0272-1708/02/$17.00©2002IEEE April 2002 IEEE Control Systems Magazine 53 Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA BAHIA. Downloaded on June 02,2010 at 17:51:33 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. technology improved, Portuguese ships explored the un- but this method was not very accurate. The consequences charted coast of Africa, a daring exploit. It was a full 70 years of getting lost at sea were extremely serious and included before da Gama rounded the southern tip of Africa and the ship’s crew starving to death or dying of scurvy, as well reached India in 1498. This age of exploration included the as the ship being destroyed on rocky shores during foggy accidental Western discovery of the New World and affected weather. indigenous civilizations for better or worse around the The problem of determining longitude was eventually globe. solved by the mechanical clock. The hero of that story is In his quest to reach China, Columbus used a sec- John Harrison (1733-1766), a British clockmaker who spent ond-century map of Ptolemy, which underestimated the 30 years designing, building, and refining what are consid- size of the earth. Fortunately for Columbus, he discovered ered the most exquisite and innovative mechanical time- a way station (and obstacle) en route. One difficult aspect pieces ever built. of ocean journeys was the problem of navigation, in partic- Before the advent of the mechanical clock, time was mea- ular, that of determining longitude at sea. Rough estimates sured by means of water clocks, hourglasses, sundials, grad- of distance could be obtained by dead reckoning, which in- uated candles, and many other devices. All of these had volved a compass for determining direction and a means deficiencies in their operation and accuracy. In the last part for timing an object floating by the ship to estimate speed; of the 13th century, an alternative technology arose, the me- Clocks G.B. Airy, “On the disturbances of pendulums and M. Kesteven, “On the mathematical theory of clock balances, and on the theory of escapements,” Trans. escapements,” Amer. J. Physics, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 125-129, Cambridge Phil. Soc., vol. III, part 1, pp. 105-128, 1830. 1978. W.J.H. Andrewes, Ed., The Quest for Longitude, 2nd. ed. D.S. Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ., Collection of Historical the Modern World, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Scientific Instruments, 1998. Univ. Press, 2000. A.A. Andronov, A.A. Vitt, and S.E. Khaikin, Theory of A.M. Lepschy, G.A. Mian, and U. Viaro, “Feedback control in Oscillators. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966. Reprinted by ancient water and mechanical clocks,” IEEE Trans. Educ., New York: Dover, 1987. vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 3-10, 1992. J.E. Barnett, Time’s Pendulum: From Sundials to Atomic R. Levine, A Geography of Time. New York: Basic Books, Clocks, the Fascinating History of Timekeeping and 1997. How Our Discoveries Changed the World. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1998. H.A. Lloyd, Some Outstanding Clocks over Seven Hundred Years 1250-1950. London: Leonard Hill, 1958. F.J. Britton, The Escapements: Their Action, Construction, and Proportion. Chicago, IL: Hazlitt, undated. Reprinted K. Maurice and O. Mayr, The Clockwork Universe: German by Arlington: Arlington Books, 1984. Clocks and Automata, 1550-1650. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1980. C.M. Cipolla, Clocks and Culture 1300-1700. New York: Norton, 1978. J.C. Pellaton, Watch Escapements, 3rd. ed. London: NAG Press, undated. G. Dohrn-van Rossum, History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders. Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago L. Penman, Practical Clock Escapements. Shingle Springs, Press, 1996. CA: Clockworks Press Int., 1998. H.B. Fried, The Watch Escapement. New York: Columbia J.H. Reid, “The measurement of time,” J. Roy. Astron. Soc. Communications, 1974. Canada, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 135-148, 1972. W.J. Gazely, Clock and Watch Escapements. London: A. Roup and D.S. Bernstein, “On the dynamics of the Heywood, 1956. escapement mechanism of a mechanical clock,” in Proc. F. Gies and J. Gies, Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Conf. Decision and Control, Phoenix, AZ, Dec. 1999, pp. Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages. New 2599-2604. York: Harper Perennial, 1994. A.V. Roup, D.S. Bernstein, S.G. Nersesov, W.M. Haddad, and J. Gimpel, The Medieval Machine: The Industrial V. Chellaboina, “Limit cycle analysis of the verge and Revolution of the Middle Ages. New York: Penguin, foliot clock escapement using impulsive differential 1976. equations and Poincare maps,” Proc. American Control Conf., Arlington, VA, June 2001, pp. 3245-3250 C. Schwartz and R. Gran, “Describing function analysis using MATLAB,” IEEE Contr. Sys. Mag., vol. 21, pp. 19-26, D. Sobel and W.J.H. Andrewes, The Illustrated Longitude: Aug. 2001. The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. New York: Walker, 1998. M.V. Headrick, Clock and Watch Escapement Mechanics. [Online] 1997. Available: C. Sturridge, Director, Longitude, DVD or VHS, Aug. 2000. http://mvheadrick.free.fr/clocklinks.html J.E.D. Williams, From Sails to Satellites: The Origin and L. Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Development of Navigational Science. New York: Oxford Revolution. New York: Doubleday, 1999. Univ. Press, 1992. 54 IEEE Control Systems Magazine April 2002 Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA BAHIA. Downloaded on June 02,2010 at 17:51:33 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. chanical clock. This technology had advantages, but it was of interacting components. The speed at which the clock not uniformly better. Mechanical clocks were heavy, expen- runs depends on the dynamics that arise from this interac- sive, large, and often less accurate than earlier technolo- tion. In particular, the period of the limit cycle arises from gies. Clock towers in Europe employed full-time caretakers the coefficients of restitution and friction, as well as the iner- who used a sundial for periodically resetting the clock, tia of the various components. while some early wristwatches had a built-in compass and The verge-and-foliot clocks were usually large and con- sundial. structed of hand-wrought iron. Blacksmiths were enlisted to At the heart of every mechanical clock lies a regulator. build them, and large towers were constructed to support While early clocks kept time poorly, gradual improvements eventually allowed mechani- cal clocks to keep time with better accuracy At the heart of every mechanical than previous devices such as sundials. The earliest regulator was the verge-and-foliot clock lies a regulator. escapement, which dates from around 1283. Unfortunately, the inventor of this device is unknown, but it them. The driving weight alone often weighed 1,000 lb. Al- is clear that during this period many craftsmen sought to at- though these were not especially accurate clocks, to the ex- tain steady, reliable motion by using gears and levers driven tent that they did not warrant a minute hand, it is by the force of falling weights.
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