This reminds me of a gem of a comment from about a month back, about a dead simple Russian guidance system from a Cold War-era missile: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47389285
Actually, someone even commented in that thread about how it was similar to biological mechanisms: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47390619
For explorations of simple mechanisms like this leading to complex behaviour, Valentino Braitenberg’s book Vehicles is a classic.
Would it do well on a Kindle or does it rely on illustrations?
Definitely relies on illustrations.
The author passed away 15 years ago so I will mention the PDF of the book shows up in the first few search results on Google.
Thanks!
Simple spin-scan but with a rolling airframe. The technique is still used today. It is simple only if one looks at individual components. The total package is a different beast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-116_Rolling_Airframe_Missi...