Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker

If you look around your house you will see several examples of fuzzy logic in action.  Products like shower heads, washing machines, air conditioners and even rice cookers use fuzzy logic.

Wiktionary states that Fuzzy Logic is “A form of reasoning, derived from fuzzy set theory, whereby a truth value need not be exactly zero (false) or one (true), but rather can be zero, one, or any value in between.”  But what does that mean for regular people?

Fuzzy Logic Examples

Take the common expression that asks if the glass is half empty or if it is half full.  Well discrete logic or on/off logic, has two options for the answer.  Either the answer is the glass if half full or the glass is half empty.  If we apply fuzzy logic to the problem  the answer can be almost anything.  We can say its 0.1 empty or 0.8 full.

Another example of this kind of logic could be in fuzzy logic washing machines.  The old on/off washing machines would use a mechanical timer to go through its various cycles, like wash , rinse and spin, thus resulting in length of wash time to be the same everytime.  The only problem with his is that it didn’t take into account how “dirty” the clothes were.  Modern washing machines on the other hand, have various sensors to detect how dirty or greasy clothes are which allow it to control and adjust rinse time, water temperature, spin spee and so on, thus resulting in cleaner clothes.  Just imagine a cooker using fuzzy logic can do for rice?

How does fuzzy logic result in perfect rice??

A digital rice cooker using fuzzy logic essentially acts as a highly trained chef would.  It monitors and adjusts the cooking time and cooking temperature depending on the type of rice in the pot and also by using its sensors to measure moisture in the rice that is cooking.  Just like a pro chef, you’ll get perfect rice everytime.