Perhaps I’m off on this but wanted to just ask. How much of that term being a contradiction is driven by the lack of a good underlying model of something. I’ll use the house temperature example here.
We have a very good model (by assumption here) of energy transmission from the exterior to the interior. We have a controller (thermostat) that only measures external features, say outside temp and maybe light and a time duration for when and how long to run either the air conditioner or heating. With a good model (and probably a good initialization at installation) that regulator seems like it would do a good job of hitting the defined internal temp target without needing to monitor the internal temp.
That certainly fails the GRT on the grounds it’s a lot more complicated than it needs to be as measuring the internal temp and then activating the AC or heating is pretty simple and straightforward. But having a good model seems to fit well with the Shannon entropy aspects—the model itself tells us what is needed about the internal temp so monitoring/sampling that variable is not necessary.
Is the complicated regulation no an open loop control case? Or is it still something of a contradiction in terms in your view?
There’s the rub. Your model will have to not only know the external temperature, but also the conductivity of the walls, the power delivered or extracted by the heat/cold source, the people or pet animals in the room and how much heat they are generating, the temperature in the adjoining rooms, and all the other factors affecting the temperature that the designer may not have thought of.
All to avoid the cost of a thermometer which you’ll need anyway to calibrate the model. This is Heath Robinson, not practical engineering.
Perhaps I’m off on this but wanted to just ask. How much of that term being a contradiction is driven by the lack of a good underlying model of something. I’ll use the house temperature example here.
We have a very good model (by assumption here) of energy transmission from the exterior to the interior. We have a controller (thermostat) that only measures external features, say outside temp and maybe light and a time duration for when and how long to run either the air conditioner or heating. With a good model (and probably a good initialization at installation) that regulator seems like it would do a good job of hitting the defined internal temp target without needing to monitor the internal temp.
That certainly fails the GRT on the grounds it’s a lot more complicated than it needs to be as measuring the internal temp and then activating the AC or heating is pretty simple and straightforward. But having a good model seems to fit well with the Shannon entropy aspects—the model itself tells us what is needed about the internal temp so monitoring/sampling that variable is not necessary.
Is the complicated regulation no an open loop control case? Or is it still something of a contradiction in terms in your view?
There’s the rub. Your model will have to not only know the external temperature, but also the conductivity of the walls, the power delivered or extracted by the heat/cold source, the people or pet animals in the room and how much heat they are generating, the temperature in the adjoining rooms, and all the other factors affecting the temperature that the designer may not have thought of.
All to avoid the cost of a thermometer which you’ll need anyway to calibrate the model. This is Heath Robinson, not practical engineering.