Mayr Origins of Feedback Control

The Origins of Feedback Control
Author(s): Otto Mayr

Source: Scientific American, Vol. 223, No. 4 (October 1970), pp. 110-119
Published by: Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc.
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HOUR
DRUM
INDICATOR
SUPPLY TUBE
ANCIENT WATER CLOCK is the earliest known device for feed change in the length of the hours can be represented by simply
back control. It was invented in the third century B.C. by a Greek turning the drum to the proper month. The float regulator at top
mechanician named Ktesibios, working in Alexandria. This draw left controls the rate of water flowing into the main tank by main
ing is based on a reconstruction by the German classicist Her taining a constant water level in the adjacent regulator vessel. If
mann Diels. The indicator figure is mounted on a large float the level rises (as a result, say, of an increase of static pressure in
(bottom), which rises inside a tank as a result of a slow trickle of the external supply line), the regulator float will rise, throttling
water into the tank. The 12 hours, which vary in length with the the inflow into the regulator vessel. The device is remarkably
seasons of the year, are indicated on the drum at top right. The similar in operation to the carburetor of a modern automobile.
110
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1970 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
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The Origins of Feedback Control
771e e()olution of the concept of feedback can be traced
through three separate ancestral lines: the water clock,
the thennostat and mechanis111S for controlling (,vindmills
by Otto Mayr
very animal is a self-regulating sys recognized as an important unifying matically, and it functions by maintain
E tem owing its existence, its sta

bility and most of its behavior to
feedback controls. Considering the uni
concept in science.
The subject of this article is the his
torical growth of the concept. Its career
ing the controlled variable (the output
signal) at the same level as the command
variable (the input) in spite of interfer
versality of this process and the fact that can be traced with some assurance be ence by any unpredictable disturbance.
the operation of feedback can be seen in cause feedback control can be rigorous The command signal may be either con
a great variety of phenomena, from the ly defined. Wiener described it as "a stant, as it is in the case of the tempera
population cycles of predatory animals method of controlling a system by rein ture setting on a thermostat, or continu
to the ups and downs of the stock mar serting into it the results of its past per ously variable, as it is in the case of the
ket, it seems curious that theoretical formance. " A more formal definition, of steering wheel position in the power
study of the concept of feedback control fered in 1951 by the American Institute steering system of an automobile. In all
came so late in the development of sci of Electrical Engineers, states: "A Feed cases, if the feedback control system is
ence and technology. The term "feed back Control System is a control system to function effectively, it must be so de
back" itself is a recent invention, coined which tends to maintain a prescribed re signed that the controlled variable fol
by pioneers in radio around the begin lationship of one system variable to an lows the command signal with the ut
ning of this century. And the explora other by comparing functions of these most fidelity.
tion of the implications of this principle variables and using the difference as a The main characteristic of a feedback
is still younger: it received its main im means of control." The purpose of such control system is its closed-loop struc
petus from the work of the late Norbert a system is to carry out a command auto- ture. The state of the output signal is
Wiener and his colleagues in the 1940's.
Feedback control is an instance of
COMMAND DISTURBANCE CONTROLLED
SIGNAL VARIABLE
technology giving birth to science. Ap
plication of the feedback principle had
its beginnings in simple machines and SUPPLY
PRESSURE
instruments, some of them going back
2,000 years or more. The thermostat
and the flyball governor are well-known DESIRED
POSITION VALVE
1 RATE OF
modern examples. Although the simple
OF FLOAT + OPENING INFLOW REGULATING WATER LEVEL
') VALVE
early inventions have been developed to
- VESSEL
a high order of sophistication, feedback
control as an abstract concept did not
receive much attention until the 1930's,
when biologists and economists began
to note striking parallels between their
own objects of study and the feedback
control devices of engineers. Certain
regulatory processes in living organisms
POSITION OF FLOAT WATER LEVEL

and in economic behavior showed the
same cyclic structure of cause and effect FLOAT
and apparently obeyed the same laws. It
became evident that the concept of feed
back control could be a versatile and
TYPICAL CLOSED FEEDBACK LOOP is evident in this simplified block diagram de·
powerful tool for investigating many picting the operation of Ktesibios' water·clock flow regulator. The arrows represent signals
forms of dynamic behavior. Today the and the blocks represent the physical components on which the signals operate. By ex·
feedback control principle is not only pressing the signals as mathematical variables and the blocks as functions, the diagram can
widely embodied in hardware but also be reduced to a differential equation describing the dynamic behavior of the system.
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Archimedes"; the other two, based on induce engineers to take up the float reg lustra/io11 on preceding pagel. The float
that work, are by 13th-century writers ulator as a method of feedback can trol. regulator soon won general acceptance
named Ibn al-S�l'atl and al-Jazar!. The In the middle of the 18th centurv the as a method of feeding water to boilers.
clocks described in these three books device was reinvented in England, ap Today it is widely used for many pur··
employ the float-level regulator of Ktesi parently without knowledge of its earlier poses.
bios, but it now regulates the oUlflow career. The float regulator's rebirth was
from the main float chamber instead of first mentioned in a 1746 bUilding man
the flow into the chamber. Hence time is ual, The Country Builder's Estimator, by The thermostat does not have so an-
cient a history. Its first prototype was
measured by the sinking, rather than the William Salmon, as a device for regulat invented early in the 17th century by
rise, of the water level [see top illustra ing the water level in domestic cisterns. Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutch engineer who
tion on preceding pagel. In 1758 the Bri tish bridge and canal had migrated to England and worked in
After these accounts in the early 13th builder James Brindley obtained a patent the service of James I and Charles I. A
century the float valve drops out of sight. for a steam engine that incorporated a highly original inventor, Drebbel would
No references to the employment of the float valve to regulate the water level in be much better known today if he had
device for water-level regulation have the steam boilers. A few years later I. I. committed his inventions to writing. Ac
been found in the technological litera Polzunov, a Russian pioneer in the de cording to an account by Francis Bacon,
ture of the Middle Ages or the Renais velopment of the steam engine, designed Drebbel devised his temperature regula
sance or Baroque periods. Even a beau such a device for the same purpose. In tor only incidentally, as an instrument to
tifully illustrated Latin translation of 1784 Sutton Thomas 'Wood in England serve another purpose: alchemy. He be
Hero's Pneumatica, which was published patented the same invention once more lieved he could transmute base metals to
in 1575 and had a powerful impact on in a design strikingly similar to Hero's gold if he could keep the temperature of
the development of technology, failed to 17-centuries-old system [see bottom il- the process constant for a long time.
DrebbeI's apparatus consisted basical
ly of a box with a fire at the bottom and
above this an inner compartment con
taining air or alcohol with a V-shaped
neck topped by mercury [see illustration
at leftl. As the temperature in the box
rose, the increased pressure of the heat
ed air or alcohol vapor pushed up the
mercury, which in turn pushed up a rod;
this mechanical force was applied to
close a damper and throttle down the
fire. Conversely, if the temperature in
the box fell below the desired level, the
.. .. _ - - ----
gas pressure was reduced, the mercury
..
dropped and the mechanical linkage
_ _ _ a • _ .. .. _.
opened the damper.
Drebbel used his contrivance not only
for smelting experiments but also to
maintain an even temperature in incu
bators. His regulator seems to have
worked with some success; members of
the Royal Society of London, including
Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren and
--- '-'__ --e..

• • •
• 4_ )
-c_
in the following generation
Hooke, showed interest in it. Detailed
Robert
..... ,.... ... (ar;;)i 11 ....... ..... .

descriptions of the device were given in
a laboratory book by DrebbeI's grandson
(whose manuscript is preserved in the
@J,. .. ...
.
University of Cambridge library) and in

.
A ...•. . M. A
the journals of a French devotee of sci
ence, Balthasar de Monconys, who in
vestigated DrebbeI's furnaces. Over the
following century there were occasional
reports of similar furnaces, evidently in
spired by Drebbel's, that were built in
Germany, France and America. None of
FIRST THERMOSTAT was invented early in the 17th century by Cornelis Drebbel. In this
these reports gave credit to DrebbeI.
drawing, made by Drebbel's grandson, the deviee is shown adapted as a temperature regu·
lator for an incubator. Smoke rising from the fire (A-A) passes by the water·jacketed in.
The French natural philosopher and in
cubator box (dotted lines) and escapes at the top through an opening (E). A glass vessel
ventor Rene-Antoine de Reaumur de
(D) containing alcohol is inserted into the water jacket and is sealed by mercury con· scribed such a furnace for the artificial
tained in a U·shaped portion of the vessel (right). As the temperature rises the increasing hatching of chickens and attributed its
volume of the evaporating alcohol forces the mercury to rise in the right leg of the vessel, invention to a member of the French
raising a float (B) and, through a linkage (H) pivoted at a point (G), closing a damper (F). royal family, the Prince de Conti.
114
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r-----
, -- ....
__
"
J'
IMPROVED THERMOSTAT, shown here as it was applied to by a lead tube (z), was immersed in the water to be heated. The
regulate the temperature in a hot·water furnace, was designed in motion of the upper rim of the lead tube caused by thermal ex·
1783 by a Parisian inventor named Bonnemain. A sensitive two pansion was then employed to adjust the air damper (s)_ The de·
metal temperature feeler, consisting of an iron rod (x) surrounded sired temperature inside the furnace could be set on a dial (It).
For two centuries Drebbel's idea of ature regulators: it had a sensitive tem "thermostat" in his Dictionary of Arts,
temperature regulation by feedback perature feeler made of two metals (an Manufactures, and Mines, which in 1839
drew little notice apart from these few iron rod encased in a lead tube) and sev described Bonnemain's regulator and
sporadic reports. Then the idea sudden eral refinements in design [see illustra some that Ure himself had designed.
ly aroused the interest of the entire en tion above]. Bonnemain refrained from
gineering community. Credit for this
achievement belongs to a Parisian inven
sharing the details of his apparatus with
the world at large until he was over 80;
The third ancestral line of feedback
mechanisms originated in the inven
tor named Bonnemain. In 1783 Bonne in 1824 the French Society for the En tion of devices for the automatic control
main, presumably having got the idea couragement of National Industry finally of windmills. They were devised in the
from reading of Reaumur's success in prevailed on him to publish a detailed 18th century by millwrights in England
hatching chickens with an artificial incu description of his system of temperature and Scotland, a resourceful group who
bator, built a regulateur de feu himself regulation. The leading technical jour combined craft skills with the beginning
and obtained a French patent for it. He nals in Britain and Germany promptly of a scientific attitude. Many of the fa
proceeded to employ his self-regulating published translations of this account, mous British mechanical engineers of the
incubator with success in a large farm and Bonnemain's temperature regulator 18th and 19th centuries began their ca
supplying chickens to the royal court and soon found its way into encyclopedias. reers as millwrights.
the Paris markets. Bonnemain's appara The author of one of these, the Scottish The first of the millwrights' feedback
tus was far superior to the earlier temper- chemist Andrew Ure, coined the term devices, patented in 1745 by Edmund
1 15
All use©subject
Lee, was a fantail designed to keep the
windmill facing the wind [see top illus
tration at left]. The fantail is a small
windwheel mounted at right angles to
the main wheel. It is attached to the
rear side of the movable cap that turns
the big wheel into the wind. Through a
train of gears the fantail controls the
turning of the cap, so that any rotation of
the fantail will cause the cap to turn.
When the main wheel squarely faces the
wind, the fantail, at right angles, is
aligned parallel to the wind direction
and does not rotate. Whenever the wind
shifts so that the main wheel no longer
faces it squarely, the wind will strike the
tail wheel, causing it to rotate and slowly
turn the mill cap until the fantail again
is parallel to the wind and the main
wheel faces it. In short, the system forms
a closed loop. Under actual conditions,
with the wind direction constantly
changing, the fantail can be considered a
rudimentary servo system.
Lee's windmill also contained an in
vention that was designed to control the
speed of the mill in spite of changes
in the wind velOCity. Regulation of the
EARLY WINDMILL CONTROLS are shown in this drawing, from a British patent award· speed of rotation was needed to protect
ed to Edmund Lee in 1745. The regulatory devices consisted of a fantail designed to keep the millstones from excessive wear and
the windmill facing the wind and a mechanism to control the speed of the mill in spite of to produce flour of uniformly fine qual
changes in the wind velocity. The tail wheel (E) attached to the movable cap of tbe mill ity. Lee attacked this problem by allow-'
drove a chain of gears that engaged a circular rack on the ground. If the mill was not facing ing the windmill sails to pivot around
the wind, the fantail would rotate, turning the main wheel into the wind. The main sails (8) the arms that held them. The sails were
of the mill were pivoted along the crossbeams and were held forward by means of a counter·
weight (F), to which they were attached by chains (C) running through the hollow main shaft.
connected to a counterweight that
pitched their leading edge forward in
moderate winds. vVhen the wind rose to
excessive velocities, so that its force on
the sails was greater than that of the
counterweight, the tilt of the sails was
reversed and the wheel's rotation veloc
ity was checked.
This system was not a case of feed
back control, because it does not try to
sense the controlled variable: speed. For
genuine feedback control of a windmill's
speed a method of measuring the speed
with some sensitivity had to be found.
An approach to meeting that need was
discovered in a mechanism known as the
"lift-tenter." This device was designed
to counteract the tendency of millstones
to move apart as their speed of rotation
increased. The lift-tenter operated to
press the millstones together with a force
proportional to the rotation speed [see
bottom illustration at left]. In 1787
L Thomas Mead, an English millwright
and inventor, combined the lift-tenter
idea with the use of a centrifugal pendu
lum to produce a speed-control system
"LIFT·TENTER" was a control device designed by the 18th·century British millwrights
to counteract the tendency of millstones to move apart as their speed of rotation increased.
that genuinely embodied the feedback
In this drawing of a lift·tenter invented by Robert Hilton in 1785 the "runner" mill· prinCiple. The whirling pendulum mea
stone (P) was lowered in proportion to the speed of the milL The speed was measured by sured the speed of the millstones' rota
means of the displacement of a bailie (8) in the discharge shroud of a centrifugal fan (A). tion, and through appropriate mechani-
116
All use©subject
cal connections it adjusted the area of bridges) had just finished his apprentice device soon became known, however.
the windmill sails to keep the wheel ro ship under the noted Scottish millwright Within a few years after its invention it
tating at the desired speed [see illustra Andrew Meikle. In a visit to the Albion was recognized everywhere as a symbol
tion below]. Mill in May of 1788 Boulton found that of the steam engine. Rotating dramati
a lift-tenter had been installed, presum cally at the top of every steam engine,
he idea of the centrifugal pendulum ably by Rennie. Boulton promptly sent it demonstrated the action of feedback
Twas immediately greeted with grati a detailed and enthusiastic description control more widely and more forcefully
tude by the pioneers in the new tech of it to Watt. The idea fell on prepared than words could have done. The gov
nology of the steam engine, just then ground. By November, Watt and his ernor soon entered the textbooks and
emerging. James Watt and his partner colleagues had designed a "centrifugal handbooks of engineering, and inventors
Matthew Boulton were building a large speed regulator," and around the end of began to develop feedback devices in
mill (later to be named the Albion Mill) the year the first governor was installed other areas of technology.
where the capabilities of 'Natl's new ro on the "Lap" engine. The picture of
tary engine were to be demonstrated. Watt's governor was to become perhaps r is curious that all the inventions of
The new engine presented totally new the most familiar one in the entire his feedback devices that came in with
requirements for its regulatory system. tory of technology. the beginning of the Industrial Revolu
There was no way to adapt the existing Watt did not take out a patent for tion originated in Britain. Even those in
devices to the continuously operating the governor. He considered the device ventors who were not British-born, no
rotary engine. merely an adaptation of the centrifugal tably Drebbel and Denis Papin (the
Watt and Boulton hired John Rennie, pendulum to a new use. He and Boulton Frenchman who invented the safety
then a young man of 23, to supervise the tried to protect it from competitors by valve, a rudimentary feedback device),
construction and operation of the Albion keeping its existence secret; the first cus presented their inventions while work
Mill. Rennie (who was later to become tomers who ordered it were asked to ing in England. Why was the Continent
one of Britain's most famous builders of hide the governor from public view. The so backward? vVhy was it, for instance,
CENTRIFUGAL PENDULUMS were employed as feedback con set of centrifugal pendulums drove the mill's lift-tenter mecha
trol devices by the English millwright Thomas Mead in his 1787 nism (left). The motion of another set of pendulums in turn regu
windmill patent. The speed of rotation of the mill sensed by one lated the speed of the mill by reducing the area of the sails (right)_
II I
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Mayr Origins of Feedback Control

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Mayr Origins of Feedback Control

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Copyright:

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The Origins of Feedback Control

Author(s): Otto Mayr

Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to

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