Type-2 fuzzy airplane altitude control: A comparative study

The standard fuzzy logic controllers, also known as type-1 fuzzy logic controllers, have often been criticized for their inability to handle uncertainties in the control processes. Therefore, a lot of attention is being focused on type-2 fuzzy logic controllers, especially, the interval type-2 fuzzy logic controllers. This paper aims at developing both type-1 and type-2 fuzzy logic controllers for an airplane altitude control problem and comparing their performances. Both the controllers have similar knowledge bases, and both of them are tested in two simulation setups, an ideally modeled setup and a setup with uncertainties. The results show that the type-2 fuzzy logic controller outperforms the type-1 fuzzy logic controller, especially, in the environment with uncertainties. Therefore, this research seems to validate the superiority of type-2 fuzzy logic control in making the controllers independent of uncertainties in intricate model details.