Take a look around any home or office and you will see that control systems are an integral part of our daily life. Heater and air conditioners in our homes use control to maintain temperature within our comfort zones. In our cars, things such as power steering, cruise control, and automatic transmission are based on automatic control systems. Air craft, automated manufacturing tools, and self guided agricultural equipment all use control systems to stay on track and perform their functions under all kinds of disturbances and fluctuations in the environments they are used.

Naturally, the control system for an aircraft is much more complex and sophisticated than that for a household heating system. The more complex the application and the more diverse the conditions it operates under, the more complicated the control system has to be. There’s a whole theory that deals with control systems. This theory works best when the systems are not too complex.

When the system being controlled is complex and has to operate under various conditions and disturbances, artificial intelligence techniques offer an excellent alternative to classical control theory techniques. This type of control, which is based on artificial intelligence techniques is called Intelligent Control. Incorporating artificial intelligence into control systems allows these systems to be more flexible, to adapt to various operating conditions and disturbances, and to incorporate human expertise and thinking into their decision making process.