Application of fuzzy logic in home appliance: gas heater controller design

The home appliance market in China has become such a big one that manufacturers are striving to increase their shares in it. Customers are giving high priority to those products with reasonably low price, outstanding quality and versatile functionality. Microcontrollers (MCUs) introduced into home appliance design give advantages of low cost and highly flexible products, and the focus in control policy design has shifted to acquire a something better one than the rigid PID controller in order to get the most out of the MCU. This paper gives an example of applying fuzzy logic mixed with a PID control policy for an innovative fast gas heater design, demonstrating the general procedures of system analysis and control policy determination. The result proves that such a design provides a good solution to meet customers´ demands while at the same time maintaining a low development budget