Naval applications of electrical remote-positional controllers

Abstract

A survey is made in this paper of some of the applications in the Royal Navy of all-electric servo mechanisms for armament control purposes.The need for the greatest possible measure of automatic operation in fire-control prediction, and in the pointing of the guns in accordance with this prediction, in order to combat high-speed aircraft and to make the fullest possible use of the continuously up-to-date location of the target by radar, led to the introduction of the servo and remote power-control systems described.By far the greater part of the systems referred to in the paper are therefore the results of development and application to specific projects over the past ten years. Brief reference is, however, made in the first part of the paper to some earlier forms of servo mechanisms of the contact-operated type used in the Navy, since this is of interest as a background to the later and more modern types of continuously operating servos, which have largely superseded them.This is followed by a description of some applications of highperformance servos of small or medium powers. These are mostly of the type using a split-field d.c. motor in which the armature of the motor is supplied direct from the d.c. supply through a series resistance (to limit the current at standstill) and the motor fields from a thermionic amplifier under the control of the servo transmission.Finally a description is given of remote power-control applications of large power in which the initial amplification is by thermionic amplifier, but in which further power amplification is obtained from rotating machines (Metadyne and Ward-Leonard) feeding the armatures of separately excited d.c. motors which drive the load.A general reference only has been made to the M-type and magslip electrical data-transmission systems used for the servos and remote power-control schemes described, since information concerning them is given in the paper on “Data-Transmission Systems” by Mr. J. Bell.