Patent US 5,331,565

A control system for controlling a plurality of control elements, which are effective to control of a given controlled system, is disclosed. In this control system, a characteristic value representing the characteristic of a given controlled system to be controlled is detected, and respective optimum manipulated variables of the plurality of control elements are derived on the basis of the detected characteristic value. The optimum manipulated variables are derived by setting a plurality of reference patterns representing different features of the characteristic value on the basis of a predicted value of the characteristic value, deriving degree of conviction that the detected characteristic value belongs to each of the reference patterns, presetting rules whereby a manipulated variable of each of the plurality of control elements is determined when the detected characteristic value belongs to each of the plurality of reference patterns, and deriving a manipulated variable of each control element on the basis of degree of conviction that the detected characteristic value belongs to each of the plurality of reference patterns and the manipulated variable determining rule preset with respect to each control element for each reference pattern.