SOFT COMPUTING - A TOOL FOR BUILDING INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS

''The essence of soft computing is that unlike the traditional, hard c omputing, soft computing is aimed at an accommodation with the pervasi ve imprecision of the real world. Thus, the guiding principle of soft computing is: '...exploit the tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty a nd partial truth to achieve tractability, robustness, low solution cos t and better rapport with reality'. In the final analysis, the role mo del for soft computing is the human mind.'' [I] In this paper terms as sociated with soft computing are defined and its main components are i ntroduced. It is argued, using a number of practical applications, tha t the hybrid approach of soft computing carl provide a methodology for increasing machine intelligence.