General Reviews:

For all the wonders of the theory of fuzzy logic, most applications would not exist without the advanced technology of sensors, chips and high speed computing.

During a recent international conference, Lofti Zedeh paid tributes to Japanese scientists and engineers for their key role in developing the practical applications that made fuzzy logic popular. Mr Zadeh believes that only a small fraction of the potential of fuzzy logic has been tapped. In the future, he sees more complex applications and an increasing role for neural networks in deriving the inference rule and membership functions from observations.

Common sense, human thinking and judgment are the lures of fuzzy logic. Combining multivalve logic, probability theory, artificial intelligence and neural networks, fuzzy logic is a digital control methodology that simulates human thinking by incorporating the imprecision inherent in al physical systems.

Fuzzy logic is only one of whole range of emerging technologies which are at the forefront of the user friendly revolution. Artificial neural networks have already been used in conjunction with fuzzy logic to offer more powerful solutions, and their mutual coexistence will lead to further developments in the coming decade. Researchers are already aiming for speech recognition and robotic 'eye-brain' applications using fuzzy logic.

The exciting thing about fuzzy logic is that is appears to have such broad applicability that future uses are likely to be surprises. Researchers talk glibly about employing fuzzy logic to recognize natural speech in which two speakers never pronounce a sort exactly the same way or to help a robot notify obstacles on a factory floor. Such applications are not what Mr Zadeh anticipated about 30 years ago.