Perspectives on the industrial application of intelligent control

Intelligent control techniques are suited for problems that are either difficult to tackle mathematically or where the use of these techniques provides improved performance, easier implementation, or faster time to market. The authors present some industrial applications of fuzzy logic and neural networks at Rockwell, comprising motor control, autopilot level change control, aircraft autothrottle control, aircraft gain schedule generation, sensor diagnostics, and control of color printing. The authors discuss the driving factors for using fuzzy and neural approaches in these applications and the benefits derived. The authors also comment on how to select the “right” application of intelligent control techniques to derive maximum commercial payoff