FUZZY CONTROL OF A HOVERCRAFT PLATFORM

A great majority of current applications of fuzzy logic are in fuzzy e xpert control systems. The candidate systems for fuzzy expert control cart be characterized as systems that possess complex or unmodeled dyn amics, high dimensionality, many interacting variables, system perturb ations, or a combination of any of these. The hovercraft is one such s ystem. The complexities that exist in hovercraft control arise because of the dual requirements of maintaining lift and maneuverability, as well as stability. Using fuzzy logic, the difficulties in both the des ign and the application of the control process are well managed. This paper demonstrates this through the implementation of the design and a pplication of a fuzzy controller for stabilizing the response of a sim ple hovercraft platform. The physical platform constructed as a testbe d is described, along with the associated control hardware. This is fo llowed by a discussion of the fuzzy rule-based system development whic h resulted in a fuzzy controller using a total of twelve rules for ach ieving platform stability.