Fuzzy logic in Northern Europe: industrial applications and software developments

Until the mid-80´s, fuzzy logic in Northern Europe was a dedication among only a few specialists in the scientific community. From an engineering point of view, a major concern was always the lack of tools enabling serious developments. Sweden never accepted fuzzy logic as a technology for control applications. In Norway, there are several research units with fuzzy systems on their research agendas, but industrial applications do not seem to emerge other than accidentally. In Finland, industrial partners are often selective about preferring robust engineering instead of seeking for novel control technologies. However, as fuzzy logic is reaching a rapidly increasing audience through media and exhibitions, industrial interests find it unavoidable to look into the potentials of extending their application culture with the possibilities provided by fuzzy logic techniques. Especially in Finland, we are now witnessing something of a boom of industrial interests in applying neuro-fuzzy techniques for a wide range of applications. Several development projects are on-going, strongly supported by universities and research institutes, and this is also leading to software developments and toolkit selection developments being tailored to Finnish industrial needs. Funding is now also more accessible for developing solutions based on fuzzy systems. In this paper, we present a usage scenario for industrial applications, and software toolkits as developed for and on the basis of the respective industrial needs