3 ms·

Makes sense. So closed loop basically means there's a feedback mechanism in place to ensure that the input results in the desired output, or some sufficient pro

• mlyle 7y ago
  Yup-- closed loop means you take negative feedback in some form, which forms a loop in the control diagram. In practice, you often end up with multiple nested control loops on this kind of system, each of which is closed. You might have a voltage controller deciding how much to turn on the motor transistors based on voltage feedback... You might have a motor speed controller which decides what voltage to give the motor based on speed feedback... With another position controller deciding what speed the motor should try to go based on position feedback... And then the magical-mirror-aiming thing deciding where the position controller should try to point it based on other feedback. And then the industrial process controller deciding how many mirrors should be pointing at the thing based on temperature feedback... And some other controller deciding what the temperature should be based on process feedback... And then humans turning the knobs on that controller based on QA feedback. (And each of these control loops usually gets at least 2x slower as the one it encloses).