Analog computer

An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities (analog signals) to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically and by discrete values of both time and amplitude (digital signals). Analog computers can have a very wide range of complexity. Slide rules and nomograms are the simplest, while naval gunfire control computers and large hybrid digital/analog computers were among the most complicated. Complex mechanisms for process control and protective relays used analog computation to perform control and protective functions. Analog computers were widely used in scientific and industrial applications even after the advent of digital computers, because at the time they were typically much faster, but they started to become obsolete as early as the 1950s and 1960s, although they remained in use in some specific applications, such as aircraft flight simulators, the flight computer in aircraft, and for teaching control systems in universities. Perhaps the most relatable example of analog computers are mechanical watches where the continuous and periodic rotation of interlinked gears drives the second, minute and hour needles in the clock. More complex applications, such as aircraft flight simulators and synthetic-aperture radar, remained the domain of analog computing (and hybrid computing) well into the 1980s, since digital computers were insufficient for the task. History of computing hardware#Analog computers Timeline of computing hardware before 1950 This is a list of examples of early computation devices considered precursors of the modern computers. Some of them may even have been dubbed 'computers' by the press, though they may fail to fit modern definitions. The Antikythera mechanism, a type of device used to determine the positions of heavenly bodies known as an orrery, was described as an early mechanical analog computer by British physicist, information scientist, and historian of science Derek J.

Architecture for integrated RF photonic downconversion of electronic signals

Tobias Kippenberg, Junqiu Liu

Electronic analog to digital converters (ADCs) are run-ning up against the well-known bit depth versus bandwidth trade off. Towards this end, radio frequency (RF) photonic-enhanced ADCs have been the subject of interest for some time. Optical frequency com ...

Optica Publishing Group2023

Federated Linear Bandit Learning via Over-the-air Computation

Yuning Jiang, Xin Liu, Ting Wang

In this paper, we investigate federated contextual linear bandit learning within a wireless system that comprises a server and multiple devices. Each device interacts with the environment, selects an action based on the received reward, and sends model upd ...

IEEE2023

Front-End Circuits for Radiation-Hard Monolithic CMOS Sensors targeting High-Energy Physics Applications

Architecture for integrated RF photonic downconversion of electronic signals

Federated Linear Bandit Learning via Over-the-air Computation

Architecture for integrated RF photonic downconversion of electronic signals

Federated Linear Bandit Learning via Over-the-air Computation

Front-End Circuits for Radiation-Hard Monolithic CMOS Sensors targeting High-Energy Physics Applications