Image formation condition controlling apparatus based on fuzzy inference

An image forming apparatus, comprising:

• an electronic photography light-sensitive body;
• means for forming a latent image by exposing said light-sensitive body after the light-sensitive body is charged and making said latent image visible by supplying a development agent;
• state quantity detection means for detecting the surface potential of a light-sensitive body or at least one state quantity for controlling a development bias voltage;
• control quantity control means for controlling a surface potential of a light-sensitive body or a development bias voltage;
• rule storage means for relating the relation between said state quantities and control quantities as a qualitative rule;
• function storage means for representing said state quantities and control quantities by at least one fuzzy set;
• and
• inference means for calculating the degree belonging to the set of control quantities from the degree belonging to the set of state quantities in accordance with each rule and inferring the most highly probable control quantity,
• said image forming apparatus infers said control quantity by means of said inference means and controls.

An image forming apparatus having an electronic photography light-sensitive body, a latent image forming means for forming a latent image on the light-sensitive body, a development means for making visible a latent image formed by said latent image forming means, and a transfer means for transferring a visible image made visible by said development means onto a transfer material, comprising:

• membership function storage means for storing membership functions in which state quantities and control quantities are each represented by a fuzzy set;
• rule storage means for storing rules in which the relation between said state quantities and control quantities is represented by the form of a fuzzy rule;
• state quantity detection means for detecting state quantities;
• suitability calculation means for calculating the suitability of a state quantity detected by said state quantity detection means on the basis of the membership functions for the state quantities stored in said membership function storage means;
• calculation means for determining inference results of each rule stored in said rule storage means by a predetermined calculation on the basis of the suitability calculated by said suitability calculation means;
• inference means for calculating a control quantity on the basis of the inference results of each rule determined by said calculation means;
• and
• control means for controlling the transfer high voltage output of said transfer charger on the basis of the operation quantity calculated by said inference means.