I know many rice cookers use fuzzy logic (or fuzzy math?) So it cooks the rice the right amount of time. How does this work?
In: Technology
The basic ones are a bit simpler than “fuzzy” logic.
Water can only stay liquid up to 100 degrees C.
While there is liquid water in the cooker it’ll have a max temperature of 100C. Any excess heat put in gets used to turn the water to steam.
When all the water is absorbed or evaporated the temperature can climb above 100C
The cooker has a temperature sensitive strip on it that triggers just over 100C. This could be fancy circuits or it could be a bi-metallic strip with the right thermal properties.
When all the liquid water is gone and the rice temperature goes above 100C the sensor trips and turns the cooker off.
[removed]
Fuzzy logic in mathematics essentially allows for degrees of truth. Instead of binary choices like “is this hot, or is it cold?”, in fuzzy logic something can be sort of or almost hot.
So for advanced, computer-controlled rice cookers, using fuzzy logic allows them to move beyond the binary choice of the basic rice cooker (is it done, yes or no) and make decisions on how to cook the rice based on what’s happening during the cooking process and how it is programmed to respond.
You don’t need fuzzy logic to cook rice properly. It’s just one of many control systems which are available on the market. The basic idea is to use the same logic as a non-fuzzy system would use (is there enough water? Did I heat it to the temperature when I should turn off the heater? Did all of it evaporate? Is it still warm enough to serve?) and introduce a bit of shades of gray in the chip’s reasoning. So, for instance, where a non-fuzzy system might continue to heat the rice because the temperature is not exactly right, drying it in the process, a fuzzy system will correctly handle a situation where the rice is _almost_ at the temperature but _barely_ started to dry up.
[removed]
Latest Answers