ARRAY PROCESSOR FOR OPTIMIZING STATE VARIABLES AND TRAVEL COSTS BETWEEN TWO TOPOGRAPHICAL POINTS

摘要

A computing system for determining the optimum or shortest elapsed time, route between two widely spaced starting and completion points calculates the cumulative cost or elapsed time using a point-by-point calculation, and successively adds cost increments between a grid of points from the starting point to the completion point. Two memories (12, 14) are provided for storing the cumulative time or cost from the starting point to each point in the grid array. A large memory (16) is loaded with incremental cost data to each point (18) in the array from each adjacent point (20), with input and output vector and/or other information. The cumulative cost information from the starting point to all other points in the array are calculated successively, with the lowest cumulative cost to each point being retained, and this process is repeated until further repetitions produce no further changes at any point.