Re: fuzzy logic

[brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>]

At 12:07 1/17/98 -0400, Ludwik wrote:
> What is fuzzy logic?
A way of making machines responsive to conflicting, sometimes
contradictory requirements of the user.
 These requirements are sometimes depicted as graphs with ramps
depicting a degree of desirabilty of an objective.

 The fuzzy algorithm defuzzifies these depictions by essentially 
finding a centroid of a surface representing the sum of the 
conflicting plots. Enthusiastically applied by Japanese industry - 
the method is the ugly step child still of US engineers.

The 'fuzzy' stigma means a person can sell $2 million dollars 
of $15 pamphlets describing how to adjust a pid controller 
by guess and by gosh...
(that's proportional, integral and differential input terms to 
an error feedback control device.)

These latter though mathematically respectable are often intractible 
in real-world situations ( like controlling the air-conditioning 
temperature in school rooms) where the fuzzy versions are 
intuitive and tunable even when faced with non-linear systems.

Brian

brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK