Hybrid fuzzy logic control of laser surface heat treatments

This paper presents an advanced hybrid fuzzy logic control system for laser surface heat treatments, which allows to increase significantly the uniformity and final quality of the obtained product, reducing the rejection rate and increasing the productivity and efficiency of the treatment. Basically, the proposed hybrid control structure combines a fuzzy logic controller, with a pure integral action, both fully decoupled, improving the performances of the process with a reasonable design cost, since the system nonlinearities are fully compensated by the fuzzy component of the controller, while the integral action contributes to eliminate the steady-state error. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.