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Computing & Control Engineering Journal

Volume 2, Issue 5, September 1991

Volumes & issues:

Volume 2, Issue 5

September 1991

Editorial. Engineers and scientists
Viewpoint. IFAC and the UK—an uncomfortable relationship?
Safety-critical control systems
  • Author(s): John Cullyer
  • Source: Computing & Control Engineering Journal, Volume 2, Issue 5, p. 202 –210
  • DOI:  10.1049/cce:19910055
  • Type: Article
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  • p. 202 –210 (9)
    This article provides an introduction to the topic of safety-critical control systems for those engineers and managers who are skilled in the disciplines of computer-based control, but have not had to face the additional engineering problems which arise when equipment is crucial to the protection and preservation of human life. Increasingly, control engineers are using computers and complex real-time software in circumstances in which serious malfunctions can result in accidents and loss of human life. Those involved professionally in such work need wide, general engineering experience, plus specialised knowledge of topics such as:• Hazard analysis, to identify the risks• Methods of writing engineering specifications• Rigorous approaches to computer programming• Testing, verification and validation• Training and education for specialist staff.
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Energy analysis and solar energy development in Cyprus
  • Author(s): J.M. Michaelides  and  P.P. Votsis
  • Source: Computing & Control Engineering Journal, Volume 2, Issue 5, p. 211 –215
  • DOI:  10.1049/cce:19910056
  • Type: Article
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  • p. 211 –215 (5)
    This article reviews the application of solar energy technology in Cyprus and presents an energy analysis, including the use of solar energy, in the island. Cyprus has no conventional sources of energy and is dependent on imported oil. However, its geographical position is such that it is one of the countries where the potential for solar energy utilisation is very high. Cyprus began manufacturing solar water heaters in the early 1960s and today it produces more than 30 000 m2 of solar collectors yearly. It is estimated that more than 130 000 solar water heaters are in operation, which provide the equivalent of 9% of the total electricity consumption in the island, and corresponds, approximately, to 4% of the national energy consumption. However, the use of solar energy for space heating and cooling provides a further challenge because it does not appear to be economic under the climatic conditions and system design practices currently prevailing in Cyprus. The article provides a statistical analysis of the energy demand and identifies areas of further growth for solar energy technology.
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Parallel Computers: Object-Oriented, Functional and Logical
Digital Signal Processing: Principles, Devices and Applications
Fault-tolerant transputer arrays for gas turbine engine control
  • Author(s): H.A. Thompson  and  P.J. Fleming
  • Source: Computing & Control Engineering Journal, Volume 2, Issue 5, p. 217 –222
  • DOI:  10.1049/cce:19910059
  • Type: Article
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  • p. 217 –222 (6)
    Fault tolerance, the ability of a system to survive in the presence of faults, is a major research area in avionics. With the increasing use of active control technology (ACT) in military aircraft to allow reductions in wing and tail area giving greater manoeuvrability it is now the case that many aircraft are unflyable without automatic stabilisation functions. If a controller fails even for a very short time this can result in the loss of an aircraft and/or pilot. The consequences in loss of life if a civilian aircraft loses a primary flight control function are even more disastrous and this is reflected by the even higher reliability levels demanded.
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Transputers: for easy to build systems from 10 MIPS to 25 GFLOPS
Contracts & Orders
The development of an EDI system
Robot Tactile Sensing
Vector Models for Data-Parallel Computing
Parallel processing for produce inspection
  • Author(s): John Marchant
  • Source: Computing & Control Engineering Journal, Volume 2, Issue 5, p. 241 –244
  • DOI:  10.1049/cce:19910065
  • Type: Article
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  • p. 241 –244 (4)
    Agriculture and the production of food are often seen as relatively low-technology areas. In reality they represent some of the most challenging environments for the application of computer systems. This article reports on the development of a system for grading vegetables and fruit. Because the unit value of even high-quality vegetables is low, they must be inspected at high speeds to make a machine commercially worthwhile. In this work an image-processing system was developed for grading potatoes at up to 2000 specimens per minute. The system is under the control of a Motorola 68000 processor which drives a specially designed data-reduction unit operating directly on frames grabbed from the TV camera. The reduced data is routed to four further 68010 processors, all of which are running concurrently. With the exception of the data-reduction unit the system was designed around commercial processor cards communicating via a VME bus. This approach represents a practical solution to a real problem, and the resulting system is now commercially available.
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