Control Matters SPLat Controls' aperiodic newsletter 16 Jul 2009 View online Welcome to our new look newsletter. I hope to be able to do these reasonably frequently. They will contain not only SPLat-related product news, but also stuff I hope anyone with a general interest in controls and technology matters will find of interest. I welcome your feedback. David Stonier-Gibson. In control - Stuff about or related to control systems Traffic control Many years ago I designed a magnetic loop vehicle detector for traffic light systems. My design was used throughout the state of Western Australia from about 1970 to 1985. Ever since that time I have had a passing interest in the problem of traffic light control. How can traffic lights be made smarter, for improved traffic flow and reduced wait times? I am also interested in algorithms and heuristics in general, meaning how to devise and program common sense rules of thumb. Some work being done at the Dresden University of Technology in Germany is very interesting, as it finds that two different traffic control heuristics that individually produce poor results can produce very good results if combined. You can read more here. Out of control - Nothing much to do with controls, (but interesting) Calculating Apollo trajectories  40 years after Apollo 11 (the landing being one of the 3 world events about which I will never forget where I was at the time - the other two being JFK's assassination and 911) I just read an article written by Jack Crenshaw, who did the trajectory calculations and designed some of the programs that ran on 1MHz computers. Jack Crenshaw also happens to be one of the gurus of embedded systems, especially in the area of math algorithms. Read his article here. The 2nd paragraph of page 3 sent shivers up my spine. This is better than any movie! Would you like your website to rank better on Google? Join our linkswap program  so we can help each other. An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962) Subscription information Please add scribe42@splatco.com to your Address Book or whitelist to ensure our emails reach your inbox. Click here for hints. © Copyright 2009 SPLat Controls Pty Ltd. This communication does not constitue professional advice