How processing in real-time drives high-performance power systems

The previous installment of this real-time control series focused on the sensing functional block of the real-time control signal chain (Figure 1). It’s easy to misunderstand the second functional block, processing, and assume that it is only tied to the core central processing unit (CPU) frequency or million instructions per second (MIPS), focusing purely on data crunching. In this series installment, I’ll demonstrate the value of processing through the lens of high-performance power systems, and dispel any misconceptions about the role of processing in real-time control systems.