"Fuzzy Control - the revolutionary computer technology that is changing
our world" - these and other headlines could be read when in the early
90's news from Japan came over telling us about the success of fuzzy
controllers. The idea which was put into practice had been suggested by
Lot? A. Zadeh in Berkeley in 1965. It had been developed and tested in
some practical - plications, especially in Europe. In Japan fuzzy
control was celebrated as a technology re?ecting the Japanese way of
thinking by its unsharpness and - plicitoverlappingofseveralstatements.
Anewtechnologyboomwaspredicted for Japan which would make Europe lose
ground. Consequently, this news created unrest. Research projects were
initiated and development departments were engaged to translate fuzzy
control into products. Adversaries and supporters hurried up to inform
themselves and intensely discussed whether the "conventional" or the
fuzzy control were the better alternative. Finally, the excitement
cooled down since in recent years fuzzy control was analyzed fromthe
classical pointofview. Thus, amoreobjective evaluation of its strong and
weak points was possible. Furthermore, it was shown how fuzzy systems
could be put to use in the steering level which is the level above the
control loop, especially in interaction with other methods of soft
computing and arti?cial intelligence. Based on these fundamentals, the
aim of this book is to support the convenient use of fuzzy controllers
and fuzzy systems in the branch of control engineering and automation
systems.
