Tim Wescott Blog on EmbeddedRelated.com

Stability or insanity

Tim Wescott — Tue, 17 May 2016 06:22:20 +0000

I've just spent over two weeks getting ready to do my next video. It was a combination of one of those vast underestimations one occasionally makes, combined with falling into a bit of an obsession.

I am, at this point, not only wondering if it was worth it, but questioning my sanity in carrying on even when the going went beyond tough to just plain crazy.

At any rate, a good video needs a...

Data Types for Control & DSP

Tim Wescott — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 00:41:49 +0000

There's a lot of information out there on what data types to use for digital signal processing, but there's also a lot of confusion, so the topic bears repeating.

I recently posted an entry on PID control. In that article I glossed over the data types used by showing "double" in all of my example code. Numerically, this should work for most control problems, but it can be an extravagant...

PID Without a PhD

Tim Wescott — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 18:18:10 +0000

I both consult and teach in the area of digital control. Through both of these efforts, I have found that while there certainly are control problems that require all the expertise I can bring to bear, there are a great number of control problems that can be solved with the most basic knowledge of simple controllers, without resort to any formal control theory at all.

This article will tell...

Levitating Globe Teardown, Part 2

Tim Wescott — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 01:41:00 +0000

Part 1 of this article was really more of an extended (and cynical) product review. In this part of the article, I actually take things apart (sometimes a bit more suddenly than I meant to) and show you some innards.First the globe. I knew there was a magnet in there someplace, because it's obviously plastic and it also attracts metal. I had intended to gently part the globe...

Levitating Globe Teardown, Part 1

Tim Wescott — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 22:17:02 +0000

I've been kicking some ideas around for a long time for a simple and inexpensive platform I could use for control systems experimentation for the beginner. I want something that can be controlled easily in a basic fashion, yet that provides some depth: I want to be able to present ever-more challenging goals to the student, that can be attained by fancier control algorithms all on the...