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From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Designing with Fuzzy Logic!
Message-ID: <1991Jun1.045312.20703@pegasus.com>
Date: 1 Jun 91 04:53:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: pegasus.1991Jun1.045312.20703
References: <91146.172850EC13@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK>
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Lines: 33

>Is there any engineer, scientist, designer..etc. familiar with 'Fuzzy Logic'
>and its applications in industry, like electronics, who can gives me
>her/his own impression about this new logic, its positives,
>negatives, advantages, disadvantages,....etc.
>

How about Fuzzy Marketing?

"Fuzzy Logic" is just the application of higher resolution controls in
the hopes of attaining greater efficiency or better control.

An example is a house thermostat.  When the temperature rises to
75-degrees the cooling system is turned on and when it drops to 70-degrees
it is turned off.  Basically on/off control over the cooling system.

With "Fuzzy Logic" you might run the cooling system constantly during
times of demand, but at a reduced level of output.  The cooling system
would be capable of finer adjustments in its output instead of just on and
off.  You would presumably be able to get by with a smaller cooling system
this way, and temperatures wouldn't vary as much.

It's a different way of looking at control systems and a cute new term to
keep the consumer amazed.  (The Japanese marketplace has been flooded with
new products featuring this new fuzzy thinking.  They use it as a ploy to
get the consumer to trade in his perfectly good widget for a new one
that's even more "High Tech".)

It's really just another step in the natural progression from mechanical
to microprocessor-based controls.


-- 
Richard Foulk		richard@pegasus.com