ABSTRACT
In this last chapter, we discuss the use of fuzzy logic in an important area of applications, namely control engineering. It should be understood that the term “fuzzy logic” is a general term used in the modeling and manipulating of fuzzy concepts as modeled by fuzzy sets, as opposed to the strict sense of “logic”. However, we focus on aspects of modeling of domain knowledge and general principles of fuzzy control rather than on its practical designs and implementation. For readers who are interested in these aspects, [28] and [126] are good sources. Also, the design of fuzzy controllers benefits from soft computing technologies such as neural networks. For an introduction to fuzzy neural control see [121]. The purpose here is to provide an understanding of the rationale behind fuzzy technology. No prior knowledge is needed. Since the methodology of fuzzy technology is general in the context of knowledge-based systems, we choose the topic of control to illustrate it. The reader can recognize easily that the discussions in this chapter apply to the field of expert systems as well.
