From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c0404d23260f247b,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: bvoh@sdynamix.com Subject: Language Challenge 2000 -- FAQ Date: 2000/03/02 Message-ID: <38BF27EA.AE965265@sdynamix.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 592502033 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Eclipse Software X-Accept-Language: en X-Server-Date: 3 Mar 2000 02:52:49 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-03-03T02:52:49+00:00 List-Id: ** Language Challenge 2000 -- Frequently Asked Questions ** This is a summary of the questions pertaining to the problem description. To avoid confusion that could critically affect your solution please examine this list carefully. Your questions have helped us refine the problem formulation which is available on "Language Challenge 2000" link on our site. Q Is the Standard Atmosphere already in "accepted formulas" or does one have to do a table look-up, interpolatory approximation, lsq or spline approximation in order to "guarantee" your targeting error? A Limiting the suggestion to using the Standard Atmosphere was deliberate as we did not want to prejudice design tradeoff considerations which you have effectively enumerated above. However, not finding the data wasn't meant to be the eliminating factor, so here are two relevant sites: http://www.digitaldutch.com/atmoscalc http://prestwick.simplenet.com/aviation/aviaform.htm Q Based on your equations of motion, I would think that you have the constraint v = sqrt(x'^2 + y'^2) but you don't explicitly say it, leading the casual observer to think that the velocity along the trajectory is constant? A Indeed, one can never assume it's obvious to everyone. In fact, this "omission" would have lead to unwittingly missing a target entirely -- problem equations have been amended accordingly. Q Assuming there are two solutions (a high trajectory and a low one) do you care which one you get? A No we don't, but we suspect you might! It is also true that the initial angle is prescribed and if your optimization happens to stray into unwanted regions then adjusting algorithm parameters may well be worth a little extra scrutiny. Q It is unclear what exactly "generalized" is supposed to mean. Is it supposed to be completely generalized, generalized to problems of this type, or generalized to this problem's parameters. A The second characterization about covers it -- you have to build an optimization based solution that could be reused by simply substituting the eom and its performance measure. It was meant to exclude quick trial & error searches, root solvers or any other technique based on problem specific apriori knowledge (e.g. solution range, scalar dimension). Questions regarding the contest should be directed to info@sdynamix.com with Contest 2000 in the "Subject" line. ----------------------------------------------- Modeling * Simulation * Analysis http://www.sdynamix.com -----------------------------------------------