Tim Wescott Blog on DSPRelated.com

New Video: Parametric Oscillations

Tim Wescott — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 20:06:45 +0000

I just posted this last night. It's kinda off-topic from the mission of the channel, but I realized that it had been months since I'd posted a video, and having an excuse to build on helped keep me on track.

Fibonacci trick

Tim Wescott — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 20:51:17 +0000

I'm working on a video, tying the Fibonacci sequence into the general subject of difference equations.

Here's a fun trick: take any two consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence, say 34 and 55. Now negate one and use them as the seed for the Fibonacci sequence, larger magnitude first, i.e.

$-55, 34, \cdots$

Carry it out, and you'll eventually get the Fibonacci sequence, or it's...

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...

Finding the Best Optimum

Tim Wescott — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 19:10:45 +0000

When I was in school learning electrical engineering I owned a large mental pot, full of simmering resentment against the curriculum as it was being taught.

It really started in my junior year, when we took Semiconductor Devices, or more accurately "how to build circuits using transistors". I had been seduced by the pure mathematics of sophomore EE courses, where all the circuit elements...

Of Forests and Trees and DSP

Tim Wescott — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:19:19 +0000

When Stephane invited me to write a blog for dsprelated.com I immediately came up with a flood of ideas for highly detailed, technical, narrowly focused articles related to the intersection of DSP and control systems.

Then the USENET groups that I frequent received a spate of posts from people that were either asking about how to implement highly detailed, narrowly focused algorithms in...