Abstract: A tachometer system for an internal combustion engine. The tachometer system uses one of two electromagnetic pulse sensing means to detect an electromagnetic signal produced by a firing of the engine. The sensing device may be an antenna or an inductive pickup. One of the signals is chosen and processed. A parameter indicative of pulse timing in the output signal is determined. This parameter is most advantageously a time between different ones of the output signals. The parameter is then converted into a value indicative of revolutions per unit time of the engine. The converting structure is advantageously formed by a personal computer.

Abstract: An energy cogeneration system of the type employed in industrial plants, such as paper mills, is described. The system utilizes the energy of steam to generate electricity, as well as to operate various industrial processes in the plant. The requirements of the processes for steam are continuously monitored, and if the requirements at any given time are significantly less than the steam being delivered thereto, the delivered steam pressure and/or temperature is reduced to make more steam energy available for other purposes.

Abstract: A parallel/pipeline processor is described designed to quite rapidly solve optimization problems with dynamic programming. The state variables and optimum costs associated with a transition are presented simultaneously to a plurality of parallel comparators at the base of a tree of comparators. Such values are presented in a serpentine memory arrangement which sequentially advances the values between the base comparators to enable the comparator tree to compute optimum transitions for successive state space cells in a pipeline fashion.