18
979-8-3503-2014-5/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE
HRS-100 creation and application history
Aleksandr A. Menn
Institute of Control Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
Moscow, Russia
menn@soyuzmadstyle.ru
Božidar L. Radenković
Faculty of Organizational Sciences
University of Belgrade
Belgrade, Serbia
boza@elab.rs
ORCID ID 0000-0003-2111-7788
Sergei P. Prokhorov
Institute for the History of Science
and Technology
Moscow, Russia
sergei.prokhorov@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1874-8602
Abstract. The report is devoted to the history
of the implementation of a successful Soviet-
Yugoslav project—the creation of a hybrid
computing complex HRS-100, which was
successfully used to solve complex problems, in
particular, the control of aircraft landing on the
deck of a ship in a situation of heavy seas, the
control of autonomous robots, as well as other
studies.
Keywords: analog computer, hybrid
computer, simulation, HRS-100, history of
computing.
1. Introduction.
During the 1950s-1970s, computer development
was closely tied to the ability of engineers to design the
architecture and integrate available components. At the
beginning, the focus was on analog computers. At the
next stage, the capabilities of analog computers, capable
of solving nonlinear systems of differential equations in
real time, were successfully combined with the accuracy
of digital computers into a new type of "hybrid
computers" that found application in solving many
problems. Hybrid systems were used to solve specific
differential equations, control aircraft, nuclear reactors,
chemical processes, control power supply systems,
manage water resources, and model processes in
industry, which were challenges for science and
economics in Serbia at that time. During the period
1950-1970, Serbia was the leading Yugoslav republic in
the research and development of analog computers. The
military and nuclear ambitions of the Yugoslav
leadership resulted in the decision to establish two
research institutes: the Vinča Institute of Nuclear
Sciences and the Mihailo Pupin Institute. The latter has
become the country's leading research center in the field
of computer science and information and
communication technologies.
In collaboration with professors from the Faculty of
Organizational Sciences and the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering of the University of Belgrade, a lot of work
has been done to develop analog, digital and hybrid
computers. At that time, Serbia was one of the five
European countries that developed their own computers.
At the same time, in the USSR, at the Institute of
Automation and Telemechanic, the idea of combining
analog and digital computers into a single computing
system arose. This was due to the fact that the Soviet
industry was faced with the problem of a sharp
complication of control systems for many technological
processes. Digital controllers and control computer
systems have become widely used for control. It was
necessary to find a technical solution for the
development of algorithms and the practical
implementation of object control systems, the dynamic
behavior of which could not be simulated in real time on
the then available digital machines. Therefore, the tasks
of modeling objects were planned to be assigned to
analog machines so that the control algorithms under
study could be programmed on the digital part of the
hybrid computing system.
The intensive development of hybrid computers in
the middle of the twentieth century is the result of work
on solving problems in the field of object motion
control, modeling and optimizing automatic control
systems, developing complex simulators, etc. The
individual use of analog and digital computers for this
set of tasks turned out to be ineffective, therefore
approaches that provide the best of both worlds. Hybrid
computing systems are an attempt to combine the best
of analog and digital technologies and avoid their
shortcomings. [1][2]
A hybrid computing system (HCS) is a complex of
several computers or computing devices (analog and
digital) united by a single control system for modeling
complex systems, optimizing automatic control
systems, solving nonlinear partial differential equations,
etc. of the computational process on individual
operations performed by AS and DS, reduces the
amount of computational operations assigned to the