Fuzzy Logic with Engineering Applications, 4th Edition

Preface to the Fourth Edition

My primary motivations for writing the fourth edition of this text have been to (1) reduce the length of the text, (2) correct the errata discovered since the publication of the third edition, and (3) introduce limited new material for the readers. The first motivation has been accomplished by eliminating some sections that are rarely taught in the classroom by various faculty using this text and by eliminating some sections that do not add to the utility of the text as a tool to learn basic fundamentals of the subject.

Since the first edition was published, in 1995, the technology of fuzzy set theory and its application to systems, using fuzzy logic, has moved rapidly. Developments in other theories such as possibility theory and evidence theory (both being elements of a larger collection of methods under the rubric “generalized information theories”) have shed more light on the real virtues of fuzzy logic applications, and some developments in machine computation have made certain features of fuzzy logic much more useful than in the past. In fact, it would be fair to state that some developments in fuzzy systems are quite competitive with other, linear algebra‐based methods in terms of computational speed and associated accuracy.

There is some new material which is included in the fourth edition to try to capture some of the newer developments; the keyword here is some because it would be impossible to summarize or illustrate even a small fraction ...