“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.
