What is the gray code?

The gray code is a type of cyclic binary code patented for the first time in 1947, but in the following patent applications it has no gray code until the beginning of the 50th year. Specifically, the gray code is reflected by the binary code, which means that the last numbers in the string can be the same as the initial numbers, but in the reverse order, allowing the construction and expansion of the usefulness of standard or natural binary code. Frank Gray, research worker Bell Labs, for whom the code is named, has developed this particular binary numerical system that helps drive electromechanical switches. Today, the gray code is used in various environments, especially digital communication, where analog signals need to be converted to digital media.

During the early phases of the Gray Code development, it was focused primarily on more efficient operation of electromechanical switches. Mechanical switches using natural binary code can be difficult to read in terms of location. Several switches can change the position at the same time, with complex temporary semiHami. Depending on the transition phase, the switch may read in one position when it is actually in the transition state to another position. Incorrect reading position reading, multiplied by several switches, can result in a whole system and false information.

Alternatively, when using a gray code, only one switch changes that eliminates the possibility of false or misleading position information, because only one bit changes at the same time. As the development of the gray code continued for decades after Gray's initial introduction, other applications came out. For example, rotary and optical encoders use a gray code because each sequence or a change in position differs by only one bit. Similarly, error corrections for digital communication, genetic algorithms and certain types Maps use gray code, also because of the uniform change of bits associated with the code.

a similar reflected binary code was used on the conor the 18th century in telegraphy. Even earlier, mathematicians reflected the binary code to solve complex mathematical questions or puzzles similar to the tower of Hanoi and ancient Chinese circular puzzles. Although these binary codes have been used, they were not standardized, patented or otherwise considered to be ownership of Gray's work at the end of the forties and in the early 1950s. Bell Labs, when using a vacuum tube invented by Frank Gray, patented the first device in which analog signals were converted to a reflected binary code. In the 1953 patent application for a device known as the Pulse Code Communication Tube or the PCM tube, Bell Labs officially referred to the gray code for the first time.