The Corliss steam engine was patented in 1849. It used pulse-width modulation to control the intake valve of a steam engine cylinder. A centrifugal governor was used to provide automatic feedback.
Some machines (such as a sewing machine motor) require partial or variable power. In the past, control (such as in a sewing machine's foot pedal) was implemented by use of a rheostat connected in series with the motor to adjust the amount of current flowing through the motor. It was an inefficient scheme, as this also wasted power as heat in the resistor element of the rheostat, but tolerable because the total power was low. While the rheostat was one of several methods of controlling power (see autotransformers and Variac for more info), a low-cost and efficient power switching and adjustment method was yet to be found. This mechanism also needed to be able to drive motors for fans, pumps and robotic servomechanisms, and needed to be compact enough to interface with lamp dimmers. PWM emerged as a solution for this complex problem.
PWM telecommunications systems were invented just prior to the start of World War II, but at that time time-division multiplexing was already in use and there were only experimental PWM systems. This changed with the introduction of the cavity magnetron in 1940, which could produce pulses of microwave frequency energy but could not vary its frequency or precisely control its amplitude. A PWM encoder was used to trigger a magnetron in the British Army's Wireless Set Number 10, which provided long-distance telephone relay, up to 80 kilometres (50 mi).[3]
By 1946, the Philips, N. V. company had designed an optical scanning system for variable area film soundtrack which used PWM while it was scanning the optical audio track transversely with a thin light beam. The electronics then evaluated the threshold between exposed (non-translucent) and unexposed (translucent) parts of the audio track. The proposed system was to reduce noise when playing a film soundtrack.[4][5]
One early application of PWM was in the Sinclair X10, a 10 W audio amplifier available in kit form in the 1960s. At around the same time, PWM started to be used in AC motor control.[6]
In the mid-1970s, early automotive applications of pulse-width modulation (PWM) were developed in the UK by Associated Engineering Developments Ltd (AED).[7] Engineers Norman Hunt and John Noddings designed systems that used pulse-width modulated electrical signals to control high-speed solenoid valves.[8][9][10] By altering the signal's duty cycle, the system could vary hydraulic and pneumatic pressure instead of just turning a solenoid valve fully open or fully closed. This technology was commercialised through AED's subsidiary company, Econocruise Ltd, based in Rugby, Warwickshire. The company used these modulated solenoid valves in pneumatic assemblies to control throttle actuators, supplying cruise control systems for luxury passenger cars and PWM speed limiters for heavy commercial trucks and buses.[11][12][13
Of note, for about a century, some variable-speed electric motors have had decent efficiency, but they were somewhat more complex than constant-speed motors, and sometimes required bulky external electrical apparatus, such as a bank of variable power resistors or rotating converters such as the Ward Leonard drive.