ABSTRACT
Control engineers are in need of simpler process and plant models and controller design methods, far removed from the highly sophisticated mathematical models available and their underlying rigorous assumptions. These simpler design methods should provide good performance characteristics, and they should be robust enough with regard to disturbances, parameter uncertainties, and unmodeled structural properties of the process under control. Fuzzy control provides a variety of design methods which can, together with traditional control techniques, cope with modern control problems. This section gives a short overview of the history and motivation of fuzzy control. The design goal of fuzzy control and the problems of stabilization, tracking, and performance are briefly discussed. Starting with a definition of a fuzzy region in state space the most important fuzzy control techniques are introduced.
