Patent ID: 7454450

Claim:
A mixed-signal system for performing Taylor series approximations, said system comprising: a digital processor for calculating coefficients F x , F y , F xx , F xy , F yy of a Taylor series equation and for calculating distance functions, wherein said digital processor includes a digital register for storing a magnitude scaling factor φ(x 0 ,y 0 ) of said Taylor series equation; a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) coupled to said digital processor; a DAC control register, coupled to said DAC, for uploading a lead term F(x 0 ,y 0 ) of said Taylor series equation from said digital processor to said DAC; a plurality of resistor-to-resistor (R2R) ladders coupled to said DAC; a plurality of first-order digital registers, coupled to said R2R ladders, for controlling resistances of said R2R ladders; a plurality of second-order digital registers, coupled to said digital processor, for uploading coefficients F xx , F xy , F yy of said Taylor series equation from said digital processor to said DAC; and an analog integrator or operational amplifier for adding outputs from said DAC and said R2R ladder to generate approximation results for said Taylor series equation.