IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25, NO.
3, MARCH 1995
Correspondence
A New Methodology for Designing
a Fuzzy Logic Controller
Han-Xiong Li and H. B. Gatland
Absstracf-A new methodology is proposed for designing a fuzzy logic
controller (FLC). A phase plane is used to bridge the gap between the
time-response and rule base. The rule base can be easily built using the
general dynamics of the process, and then readily updated to contain the
delayed information for reducing the deadtime effects of the process. An
adaptive gain method is also proposed to help the data base design and
the controller tuning. Much of the FLC design can be shifted to the design
and tuning of gain. A good performance can be achieved both in transient
state and steady state without use of multi-decision tables. Application of
FLC with these new methodologies is presented for a thermal process
with a varying deadtime to show the robust performance of FLC and the
effectiveness of these methodologies.
I. INTRODUCTION
Fuzzy control was first introduced in the early 1970’s [7] in an
attempt to design controllers for systems that are structurally difficult
to model due to naturally existing nonlinearities and other modelling
complexities. During the past years, fuzzy control has emerged as one
of the most active and fruitful areas for research in the application
of fuzzy set theory [8].
When designing a control system, an initial step is to obtain a
mathematical model for the plant and the controller. This model
represents the formulation of prior information into an analytic
structure, but many real world systems have unknown parameters or
highly complex and nonlinear characteristics. Attempts to overcome
these difficulties have led to research into very complex controllers,
which may cause difficulties when applied.
Fuzzy logic control (FLC)appears very useful when the processes
are too complex for analysis by conventional quantitative techniques.
Experiences show that the FLC yields results superior to those
obtained by conventional control algorithms in the complex situation
where the system model or parameters are difficult to obtain [I],
[2], [5]. In recent years, the technology of FLC has been developed
successfully. Applications of FLC on practical processes exist every-
where [6]. The fuzzy logic inference unit produced by OMRON is
already in the market.
FLC design is involved with two important stages: knowledge base
design and FLC tuning. However, at present there is no systematic
procedure for the design of the knowledge base and the tuning
of FLC. The control rules are normally extracted from practical
experience, which may make the result rather subjective. It is also
difficult to design a data base because of the many uncertainties
which need to be considered. The scaling gains are used with the
inputloutput of FLC to form fuzzy-PI control [l], [3] and some
explanations are given which have been based on experiments [9].
However, a more theoretical explanation is needed as guidance for
designing and tuning these gains. Practically, it is also difficult to
achieve excellent performance in both the transient and static periods.
Manuscript received November 1, 1993; revised April 27, 1994.
H.-X. Li and H. B. Gatland are with the Department of Electrical & Elec-
tronic Engineering, The School of Engineering, The University of Auckland,
Auckland, New Zealand.
IEEE Log Number 9406071.
0018-9472/95$04.00 0 1995 IEEE
505
To assist with this problem, a second fine look up table is usually
used for the static period [l], [2], [5], which, however, increases the
complexity of the system and difficulties of tuning.
Based on the above points, new methodologies for designing and
tuning the FLC are presented in this paper. Attention is focused on
the following approaches:
0 A new methodology for building a rule base for FLC
A phase-plane method can bridge the gap between the process
dynamics and the rule base of FLC. The sign of the control rules can
be determined by this method. Then the rule base can be built more
easily using the general performance of the process as the basis. The
result will be more universal and less subjective. For a long time-
delay process, this rule base is easily modified to contain the delay
information, so that the delay effects can be reduced.
0 FLC with adaptive gain design and adjustment
A theoretical explanation is given for the relation between the
control resolution and fuzziness of inputloutput variables. Based on
this theory, the guidance for designing and tuning the scaling gains
is given. With the adaptive gain method, excellent performance in
both the transient and static period can be achieved without using
multi-decision tables. Therefore, much of FLC design can be shifted
to the design and tuning of scaling, which becomes much easier and
convenient, just as with a conventional PI controller.
0 Applying the new methodologies to FLC of a thermal process
Experimental results are presented to show the stability and per-
formance robustness of FLC to the system variations, with particular
reference to variable plant deadtime.
II. FUZZY LOGIC CONTROL (FLC)
A, Fuzzy Control Architecture
A schematic of a fuzzy control system for a regulation control task
is shown in Fig. 1. This uses two dimensional fuzzy control. The crisp
output error time sequences: error e and change of the error Ae, are
first converted to fuzzy variables. The error signals are defined as:
e k = set point (kth sample time)
- output (kth sample time)
Aek = e k - ek--l
These variables evaluate the control rules using the compositional
rule of inference, and the appropriately computed control action is
then reconverted to the crisp value required to regulate the process.
So, designing fuzzy controllers may include: 1) defining input and
output variables, 2) fixing the process in which the input variables
are converted to fuzzy sets, 3) determining the knowledge base, 4)
designing the computational unit that accesses the fuzzy rules and 5)
devising an appropriate transformation of fuzzy control actions into
crisp control actions. Among these, designing the knowledge base is
one of the most important and difficult tasks.
B. Fuzzy PI Control Algorithm
An integral action is normally needed to achieve the best perfor-
mance in the practical control situation. As it is two dimensional
fuzzy control, a practical FLC should possess Proportional-Integral
(PI) control effect.
I
506 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25, NO. 3, MARCH 1995

A. Data Base Design

The concepts associated with a data base are used to characterize
fuzzy control rules and fuzzy data manipulation in an FLC. The
strategy of the data base is more concerned with control variables,
membership functions and their degree of fuzziness. The work
is subjectively defined and based on experience and engineering
judgement.

1. Control Variables,Membership Functions and Their Fuzziness

Definition of a f u u y set: A fuzzy set F in a universe of discourse
U is characterized by a membership function p which takes values
in the interval [0, 13. The support of F is the set of points in U for
which p is positive. Thus a fuzzy set F in U may be represented
as a set of ordered pairs of a generic element y and its grade of
membership function: F = p(y)/y. When U is continuous, a fuzzy
set F can be written concisely as F = s,
p(y)/y, where the integral
sign is used to represent the union of the fuzzy singletons.
The first step is to define the control variables. The control input
variables for FLC are normally chosen as error and change of
error, and the control output variable as the increment for fuzzy-
PI control. Each control variable should be decomposed into a
I c”ut set of fuzzy regions. These regions are given unique names, called
labels, within the domain of the variables. The most common labels
Fig. 1. Fuzzy logic control system architecture. used are: positive large (PL), positive medium ( P M ) , positive small
(PS),zero ( Z R ) ,negative large (NL), negative medium ( N M ) and
negative small (NS). The grade of each label is described by a fuzzy
pupr PI control Algorithm set. The function that relates the grade and the variable is called the
membership function (MF).
Knowledge Base The degree of fuzziness of a linguistic variable mainly depends on
the fuzziness of the MFs of its labels. The more fuzzy the MFs for
each label, the more fuzzy the variable. We can also use “coarse”
(more fuzziness) and “fine” (less fuzziness) to compare two fuzzy

~ I . .. . .
~~
... .. .. . .
:
..
J
~

I
variables or their MFs.

2. Fuzziness and Control Resolution

Fig. 2. FLC with PI function.
The control resolution depends on the fuzziness of the control
variables, whereas the fuzziness of control variables depends on the
fuzziness of their MFs.
A conventional P I control algorithm is: I) Control input variables: Suppose E is a linguistic control input
variable which is associated with a label set:

L ( E ) = {NL, NM, NS, Z R , PS, PM, P L } (4)

In digital implementation, its velocity (incremental) form of the
with each label defined on UE = [-3A, 3A].The grade of each label
algorithm is used:
s
is described by a fuzzy set F , ( E ) = p Z ( E ) / E
(i = N L , . . . , P L )
in the universe of discourse U E , which is a triangle-shaped MF as
shown in Fig. 3. Then, these primary fuzzy sets, or MFs, can be
described as:
If ek and Aek are fuzzy variables, (2) becomes a fuzzy control algo-
rithm. Therefore, a practical fuzzy-PI control algorithm is extended
+
F , ( E ) = F , ’ ( E ) FT(E),
i = NM, NS, Z R , PS, P M
to (3): F signifies the fuzzy function that acts on the rules given in
the form of a look-up table. A F,(E)=F;(E), i=NL
F,(E)=F,’(E), i =PL (5)
Uk+i = uk -k AUk+i = U k -k KAUk+i
Auk+i = F { E k , A E k ) = F{I<rek,KpAek) (3) F,’ ( E ) and F: (E) represent the left and right side of MF for each
label respectively, and can be expressed as:
practical implementation of Fuzzy PI concepts is simplified in Fig. 2.

KNOWLEDGE BASEDESIGN
111. CONTROL
The knowledge base of an FLC is composed of two components,
namely, a data base and a fuzzy control rule base [4].
 ..I

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25, NO. 3, MARCH !995 507

I
eqLivalent

NL NM NS ZR PS PM PL Fig. 4. The effect of scaling gain.

-3A -2A -A 0 A 2A 3.4
Fig. 3. Membership function for the input variables. When E = N * e , fuzzy set F , ( E ) can have the same number of
supports as F, (e) with each support E in UE N times the support e
in U,. Then, we can have:

F,'(E) = s,,-,
E,
P1(E)IE

= /"'
N(e,-a) { 5a + (1 - .)}/E
where E Z R = 0 , E p s = - E N S = A,EPM = - E N M =
2A, E P L = - E N L = 3A.
Similarly, suppose e is another linguistic control input variable
which is associated with a same label set as E , with each label defined
on the universe of discourse U , = [-3a, 3a].The grade of each label Similarly,
is described by a fuzzy set F,(e) = p , ( e ) / e ( i = N L , . . . , P L ) ,
which again is a triangle-shaped MF similar to F, ( E ) in Fig. 3. Then,
these primary fuzzy sets, or MFs, can be described similarly as in
(5). Their left side and right side of the MFs for each label, F,'(e)
F,'(E) = L:+* pF(E)/E= /N(eaCR) &(e)/E
Ne,
(9)

and F:(e), can be expressed as in (7): We can easily have

E )p z ( e ) ,
p C L Z (= for every support
Eande(E=N*e)

This means fuzzy sets F, ( E ) can give the equivalent result as Fa( e )
when E = N * e . Then variable E can achieve same fuzziness as
e. The practical meaning of the above result is shown in Fig. 4.
By adjusting scaling N, variable e can achieve equivalent results by
(7) using F ( E ) instead of F ( e ) .
N = 1, when F ( e ) has the same fuzziness as F ( E ) .
N > 1,when F ( e ) is more fine than F (E).With the larger N, the
where e z R = 0, e p s = - e N S = a , epM = -eNM = 2a, epL =
finer F ( e ) can be implemented by F ( E ) .
-eNL = 3a. N < 1, when F ( e ) is more coarse than F ( E ) . With the smaller
The fuzziness of the MF for each label depends on the distribution
N, the coarser F ( e ) can be implemented by F ( E ) .
of p over its support. If two MFs have the same p values for
This is very important because by adjusting the scaling gain N , a
their supports, then these two MFs have the same fuzziness. When
fuzzy variable with coarse MFs can achieve the result equivalent to
the universe of discourse is continuous, the larger spread has more
a fuzzy variable with fine MFs as long as their MFs have the same
support and wider distribution, which causes more fuzziness.
shape, and vice versa.
When A = N*a,UE is N times U, (N is a constant). We can
2) Control output variable: The control output can be obtained
easily obtain:
from the centre of gravity method in (10).
when N = 1, F , ( E ) has the same degree of fuzziness as F,(e)
) every support of E in UE and e in
because of p C L , ( E=) p L , ( e for
U,, i.e., variables E and e have the same degree of fuzziness.
when N > 1, F, ( E ) is more coarse than F, ( e )because of the larger
spread and wider distribution of p (A > a), i.e., variable E is more
coarse than variable e.
when N < 1, Fa(E) is more fine than F, (e) because of the smaller
spread and narrower distribution of p ( A< a), i.e., variable E is where p, is the grade of j t h output MF, AU, is the output label
more fine than variable e. for the value contributed by the j t h MF, AU is the output variable,
The fuzziness of variables can be adjusted by controlling their m is the number of contributions from the rules. We can define the
scaling, Le. the sumorts of their MFs in the universe of discourse. fuzziness of the output variable as:

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508 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25, NO. 3, MARCH 1995

A coarse fuzzy output variable has less labels while a fine one
has more labels on the same universe of discourse.
The fuzziness of the output variable determines the output magnitude.
For the same grade of MFs, a coarse variable produces a large output
and a fine variable produces a small one. By adjusting the output
scaling gain in ( l l ) , the output magnitude produced by a coarse
0 IO 20 30
output variable can be reduced; the output magnitude produced by a time
fine one can be increased. L

4
ID

Therefore, a coarse variable can achieve the equivalent result to a

fine variable, and vice versa.
Actually, designing a data base is to define the fuzziness of
--22 ' I
the control variables and control resolution. The control resolution 0 10 20 30
depends on the fuzziness of inputJoutput variables. The choice
Fig. 5. General step response for a process.
of input variables with different fuzziness reflects some a priori
knowledge and provides a control input with different resolution. For
example, a coarse variable could be used for large inputs and a fine
variable for small inputs. By adjusting scaling gains K p ,h-zand K
in Fig. 2, conversion between variables with different fuzziness can
be achieved so that control resolution for fuzzy-PI can be adjusted.
Then, much of data base design can be shifted to the design and tuning
of these scaling gains, which becomes more easy than developing
another set of rules.

B. Control Rule Base Design

The strategy of the rule base has to do with the fuzzy control rules
themselves. The design of fuzzy control involves writing rules that .
ne
relate the input variables to the output model properties. These rules C
are expressed in an English-like language with a syntax such as: I
If {error e is A and change of error Ae is B }
then {control output is C} DclQc2 e

Such a group of rules forms a fuzzy control rule base. Unfortunately,

there is no mature guidance for control rule base design. As FLC is
independent of the system model, the design has mainly relied on the
intuitive feeling for, and experience of, the process, which is largely
a subjective and inconvenient method. To reduce this subjectivity, a Fig. 6. The mapping of the time domain response in error state space.
new methodology for rule base design, based on the general dynamic
behaviour of the process, is now introduced.
Generally speaking, the time step response of the closed-loop
In conventional control, the phase-plane is a useful tool for
system should have a shape similar to one of those shown in Fig.
analysing the stability of a non-linear system. In fuzzy control,
5. Type A and B are stable, type C and D are unstable. The type
this error state space can also act as a bridge between the system
B response is a more general type which contains all the shape
performance and the rule base. The mapping of all these responses
roughly divided into four areas A1 -
characteristics of the other three types. The type B response can be
A4 and two sets of points:
cross-over { b l , b z } and peak-valley { c ~ , c z } The
. index used for
in the error state space is shown in Fig. 6. The system equilibrium
point is the origin of the phase-plane. As these four areas and two
identifying the response area is defined as: sets of points cover all the possible step responses, the frame of the
rule base can be built as in Fig. 7.
Al:e>OandAe<O Az:e<OandAe<O There are three metarules [3]:
AB:e<OandAe>O A*: e > O a n d A e > O 1) If both e and A e are zero, then maintain present control setting
(Au = 0).
and the cross-over index: 2) If conditions are such that e will go to zero at a satisfactory
bl: e>O+e<O,Ae<O bz: e < O - + e > O , A e > O rate, then maintain present control setting (Au = 0).
3) If e is not self-correcting, then control increment Au is not
also the peak-valley index: zero and depends on the sign and magnitude of e and Ae.

c1: Ae=O,e<O cz: Ae=O,e>O By analyzing the phase-plane trajectory, we can obtain some more
detailed rules for the third metarule.
It is easily found that the type D response also occupies these four 3.1) Rules for cross-over points { b l , b z } :
areas, the type C only occupies A1 and A2 areas, and the type A The control increment has the same sign as Ae.
just occupies A1 area. 3.2) Rules for peak-valley points ( c 1 , c ~ ) :
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25, NO. 3, MARCH 1995 509

Oele NL N M NS ZR PS P M PL
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I . ............
PL : .
. .. .
..
PM i Ag * . . .. .
i.
:. . b2ii
. . . A4 :
ps :.. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . ...., . ... . . ... -. ................
.. . ..
... .. ...
...I.. . . . . .cl.. . . . . . .‘.“....a,.
. .
.. . ..
.Q.. ... .!. . . . . . :,

.. . ..
. .
. . ... . .. . . .... . . . . . . . .
. .. . .. *
. .. - .. .
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 5

Fig. 8. The effects of deadtime for step response.

Fig. 7. The frame of the rule base. The Ae may have relatively large influence on overshoot when le1
is relatively small (i.e. ZR, NS, P S ) . Therefore, C can be chosen
to allow control Iul become smaller and prevent any overshoot.
TABLE I Correcting for Deadtime: When the system has a very long time
RELATIONBETWEEN WHENAe = ZR
AND ERROR
CONTROL delay, the controller receives very delayed information so that the
e NL NM NS ZR PS PM PL performance is badly affected. To overcome this, it may be helpful
uo NL NM NS ZR PS PM PL to introduce some delay information into the rule base.
From the time response analysis in Fig. 8, it can be seen that

The control increment has the same sign as e. -

the trajectory the FLC observes will fall behind the actual one. To
overcome this effect, shift the four areas A1 A4 and two sets of
points the FLC observes to the right. This is equivalent to shifting
3.3) Rules for area A1 should shorten the rise time when e is large
the observed trajectory at the bottom half of phase-plane (Ae < 0)
and prevent the overshoot in A2 when e is close to zero.
to the left, and the observed trajectory at the top half plane (Ae > 0)
The control increment is positive when e is still far away from zero.
to the right. This shift can be mapped to the rule base; the bottom
The control increment is zero or negative when the response
rules should shift to the right and top rules shift to left to reduce the
approaches the set point.
delay effects.
3.4) Rules for area A2 should decrease the overshoot around the
peak:
The control increment is negative.
3.5) Rules for area AB mirrors the rules for area A I . IV. TUNINGSTRATEGY
The control increment is negative when le1 is still far away from The most difficult problem with FLC is the parameter tuning. The
zero. objective of tuning is to select the proper combination of all the
The control increment is zero or positive when the response control parameters so that the resulting closed-loop response best
approaches the set point. meets the desired design criteria.
3.6) Rules for area A4 should decrease the overshoot around the The normal strategies used for such a fuzzy-PI tuning are [l]:
valley: 1) to adjust fuzziness of the input and output by tuning the scaling
The control increment is positive. gain from data base K p ,h-Iand h-.
The above rules can help determine the sign of the control 2) to do fine tuning for rule base and membership functions.
increments. Then the magnitude of control increments u can be Normally all the KP,Kr and K are tuned through a trial and
figured out from the following heuristic steps: error process because there is no systematic method. Unlike the
1) Control magnitude uo when Ae = ZR conventional controller, many solutions may exist for FLC.
The control output uo can be easily determined by Table I. Practical experiments show that it is difficult to maintain excellent
2) Control magnitude u when Ae # ZR performance in both transient and steady state. This is because
The control magnitude u can be expressed in a more general form: different control resolutions are required for transient and steady
states. In the transient state, large errors need coarse control which
u = (UO + Ae) + C (12) requires coarse inputloutput variables; while in steady state, small
errors need a fine control, which requires fine input/output variables.
C is a compensation term expressed in labels, generally it is chosen According to the theory discussed previously, coarse/fine control in-
as ZR in most cases. As variables are expressed in labels, so the put variables need smallflarge input gains; coarse/fine output variables
add operation is defined as: P S P M = PL, P S PL =+ + need largekmall output gains.
+
P L , P S N M = N S , . +,. etc. It is reported that a second fine look up table, which can provide a
The Ae has relatively little influence on overshoot when le1 fine control, is often used to replace the coarse table when the error
is relatively large (i.e. N L , N M , PM, P L ) . Therefore, C can be falls within a preset limit [l], [2], [ 5 ] . However, this increases the
chosen to speed up the response. complexity of the system and the difficulties of tuning.
~

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510 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25, NO. 3, MARCH 1995

TABLE LI

functiondgain
coarse tuning
Ii,
TUNING

small
STRATEGY
h-i
small
I<
large
t
fine tuning large large small

TABLE III
FLC PARAMETERS FOR A THERMAL
PROCESS

functiondgain
coarse tuning
fine tuning
Ii,
30
90
I(,
1
5
h'
0.016
0.003 t z.os/Div 1
Fig. 11. PID performance under delay Lz = 0.5 sec.

Oe/e NL N M NS ZR PS PM PL
........ ............................... .........................
PL ; zr PS ps :;pmit
.. pm pi pl I
PM i m zT ps : i p s : :pm pi pi
PS inm ns i i ps ;..........................
........ .................. .
j ps pl pl i
.-.-.- .-
ZR ; n l nm f l ~;mi ps pm pl!
........ ................. .........................
NS nl nl m :.. ..j m ..;.. ;ZT ps pm
NM i d d m ; ..
'. . fls
ns& ps :
Z.Os/Div
NL t......... nl mf:mjj
n l ............... m 11s zr i
.....................................
!
Fig. 12. PID performance under delay L3 = 0.8 sec.

Fig. 9. The rule base for the thermal process. There are three steps to tune these scaling gains:
Step 1: To obtain an initial second set of gains ( h - pIi11,
~ , Kz)
without adaptive gain adjustment:
1) tune A' to have reasonable steady-state performance
2) tune K I ,K p to improve steady performance
Step 2: To obtain an initial first set of gain (K,l, K I I ,K l ) with
adaptive gain adjustment.
Keep the gains obtained from step 1 as second set of gain, then
1) tune hT1 to have a reasonable transient response.
2) tune Kp1,K I to~ improve the transient response.
Step 3: Final tuning
Tune both sets of gain by a trial and error process to improve the

t
I
2.0dDiv
I
I
overall performance.

v. OF FLc FOR A THERMAL

APPLICATION PROCESS
Fig. 10. PID performance under delay L1 = 0.1 sec.
The thermal process used for laboratov tests is a model of a
real industrial process with the process temperature as the controlled
A new methodology is introduced here, which possesses the variable. This nonlinear process can be approximated as a first-order
effects of both coarse and fine tuning without using multi-tables. plus deadtime system shown in (13). The thermal process has three
As described previously, the control resolution depends on the different deadtime situations.
fuzziness of inpudoutput variables. Therefore, control resolution can K e-Ls
be adjusted by using different input/output scaling gain K,, K I and
G(s) =-
1+Ts
I<-.Coarse-fine control tuning can be done by using adaptive gain
adjustment.
One set of scaling gain (&-,I,h - p l , K I ) is used for a coarse T M 0.4sec. L1 M 0.1sec. Lz M 0.5sec. 153 = 0.8sec.
control, to speed up transient response. When the error falls within The aim of the experiment is to compare the effects of changes of
preset limit, the second set of scaling gains ( K p 2 ,K r z , K 2 ) is used deadtime of the thermal process when under PID and FLC control
for a fine control, which can smooth the response around the set point. respectively. The procedure of the experiment is: 1) Tune PID and
The tuning methodology is given in Table 11, which gives a general FLC to their optimum performance under small deadtime condition.
relation between two sets of gain. 2) Let both controllers work in different deadtime situations without

111 1
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS,MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25, NO. 3, MARCH 1995 511

I 1 t+ t
f ._
hi

u t

2.0sDiv Z.Os/Div

Fig. 13. FLC performance under delay L1 = 0.1 sec. Fig. 16. PID performance under delay L3 = 0.8 sec. after re-tuning.

I 1
t t t t

I :
2.o s m v
tI
2.0smv
""1 I

Fig. 14. FLC performance under delay L2 = 0.5 sec. Fig. 17. FLC performance under delay L3 = 0.8 sec. with the delayed rule
base.

t t Oele NL NM NS ZR PS PM PL
.........................
pl pl PI i
pl pl pl ;
........................ pl pl pl i
.......................

! nl nm .mi ps pm P I /
i
t
1
tis
......................... .........................
2.OsDiv

Fig. 15. FLC performance under delay L3 = 0.8 sec.

changing their parameters to test their performance robustness. 3)
Re-tune both PID and FLC under the long deadtime situation.
PID controller can be tuned using Ziegler-Nichols method.
A fuzzy-PI control is used as shown in Fig. 2. The MFs for input
variables are triangle-shaped as shown in Fig. 3. Its rule base is given
in Fig. 9, which is obtained from the frame of rule base in Fig. 7,
heuristic rule (12) and practical experiments. The compensation term
C in (12) is chosen Z R in most cases. When le1 is relatively small,
to prevent any overshoot, sometimes it is necessary to chose C small
and opposite in sign to Ae. Through a trial and error process, the
FLC scaling gains for small deadtime condition are determined as
shown in Table 111.
The experimental results are shown in Figs. 10-15. PID works
well when the system has short deadtime, but the performance
deteriorates as the deadtime increases, becoming unstable with the
long deadtime. Although the process is really too simple for FLC,
.............................................................
Fig. 18. The delayed rule base for the long delay process.
nevertheless it shows more robustness to system variations and has
large stability range. It is stable under all situations maintaining
reasonable performance.
After re-tuning both controllers under the long deadtime (L3)
situation, the experimental results are shown in Figs. 16-17. FLC
with the delayed rule base shown in Fig. 18 can achieve still better
results.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The phase-plane is very useful for designing the rule base for
FLC. Under this methodology, the rule base can be easily built and

I
512 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. 25,
updated. The delayed information can be easily incorporated to reduce
the deadtime effect of the process. Different control resolutions are
required for the transient and steady state responses. The control
resolution depends on the fuzziness of the input/output variables in
FLC. By tuning the scaling gains for the input/output variables, the
control resolution can be adjusted. Then, much of the design work
can be shifted to gain design and adjustment, which becomes much
simpler. Under the new methodology-adaptive gain adjustment, a
better performance of both the transient and static period can be
achieved. This methodology is much more efficient than using multi
decision tables. Experimental results show that for a process with
long deadtimes, or varying deadtimes, FLC can achieve a better
performance than a PID controller. FLC can achieve a good result
for a complex process with dynamic variation,
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to the OMRON company for their tech-
nical support on hardware and software. All experiments have been
done on the OMRON fuzzy logic inference unit and PLC systems.
REFERENCES
[l] G. M. Abdelnour, “Design of a fuzzy controller using input and output
mapping factors,” IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cyber., vol. 21, no. 5, pp.
952-960, Sept. 1991.
[2] C. M. Liaw, “Design and implementationof a fuzzy controller for a high
performance induction motor drive,” IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cyber., vol.
21, no. 4, pp. 921-929, July/Aug. 1991.
[3] K. L. Tang, “Comparing fuzzy logic with classical controller design,”
IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cyber., vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 1085-1087, Nov. 1987.
[4] C. C. Lee, “Fuzzy logic in control systems: Fuzzy Logic Controller,”
IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cyber., vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 404435, Mar. 1990.
[5] Y. F. Li and C.C. Lau, “Development of fuzzy algorithms for Servo
systems,” IEEE Control Systems Magazine, pp. 65-71, Apr. 1989.
[6] K. Self, “Designing with Fuzzy Logic,” IEEE Spectrum, pp. 2 2 4 ,
Nov. 1990.
[7] L. A. Zadeh, “Outline of a new approach to the analysis of complex
systems and decision processes,” IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cyber., vol.
SMC-3, no. 1, pp. 2 8 4 , Jan. 1973.
[8] E. Cox, “Fuzzy Fundamentals,” IEEE Specfrum, pp. 58-61, Oct. 1992.
[9] T. J. Procyk and E.H. Mamdani, “A Linguistic Self-organizing Process
Controller,” Automutica, vol. 15, pp. 15-30, 1979.
An Adaptive Training Algorithm
for Back-Propagation Neural Networks
Hsi-Chin Hsin, Ching-Chung Li, Mingui Sun, and Robert J. Sclabassi
Abstract- A dynamic learning rate for back-propagation training
of artificial neural networks is proposed as a weighted average of
direction cosines of the incremental weight vectors of the current and
previous steps. Experiments on training an EEG-based sleep state pattern
recognition scheme have demonstrated its improved performance.
Manuscript received August 28, 1992; revised May 12, 1993 and May 6,
1994.
H.-C. Hsin and C.-C. Li are with Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261 USA.
M. Sun and R. J. Scalabassi are with the Department of Neurological
Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261 USA.
IEEE Log Number 9406067.
0018-9472/95$04.00 0 1995 IEEE
NO. 3, MARCH 1995
I. INTRODUCTION
The generalized delta rule for back-propagation training of feed-
forward artificial neural networks has been used extensively in many
applications. It uses the gradient descent method to provide a suitable
solution weight vector in a multi-layered, feedforward artificial neural
network by minimizing the sum of squared errors [ 11, [2]. During the
training process, an input pattern or a set of patterns is presented
to the network and propagated forward to determine the resulting
signals at output units. The difference between the actual output
and the desired output represents an error which is then back-
propagated through the network in order to adjust the connection
weights among artificial neurons in adjacent layers. Each weight
is adjusted by an amount which is in proportion to the descent
gradient of the sum of the squared errors, where the proportionality
constant, 7 , is called the learning rate. The training may take a
long time and convergence behavior may vary depending on the
learning rate chosen, the number of hidden units and layers used,
and the nature of the training patterns. Different means have been
suggested to accelerate the convergence [3]-[8], including the use of
dynamic learning rate ~ ( k )the , diagonal Hessian approximation in
Newton’s algorithm, a nonlinear least square optimization algorithm
using successive local batch data sets, and the use of saturating
linear coupled neurons. The sensitivity of neural networks to weight
errors has been discussed [9]. The convergence problem with a
constant learning rate in stationary random input environments has
been studied [ 101. An adaptive training procedure for data originated
from a slowly varying nonstationary process has been suggested [ 111;
and an alternative fast training algorithm, incorporating a decision tree
simulated by a neural network, has been proposed [12]. Recently, the
back-propagation has been reformulated so that the Kalman filtering
can be used to update the weights at each layer resulting in fast
convergence [ 131-[ 151; computation of the inverse autocorrelation
matrix involved, however, would be expensive. All of these efforts
are directed toward improving the training speed and recognition
accuracy. The goal of this paper is to give a modified dynamic
learning rate, which is simple to implement, for enhancing the back-
propagation training. We illustrate its performance in training an
artificial neural network, with single-channel EEG features as its
input, for sleep stage recognition.
11. A MODIFIEDDYNAMICLEARNINGRATE
The standard back-propagation training algorithm is given by the
following equations:
1
zf =
1 + exp (--X(net;)}
for output layer (5)
for hidden layer (6)