Date: 17 Jul 2019

What is hard computing?

Hard computing is a traditional computing. It requires a precisely stated analytical model and usually a lot of computation time. It strictly follows known steps to solve a task as opposed to soft computing which is heuristic.

The term, hard computing, was coined by Dr Lotfi Zadeh. Here ‘hard’ has nothing to do with hardware.

The principles of hard computing are precision, certainty and rigor.

Hard computing is achieved using sequential programs that use binary logic. It is deterministic in nature. The input data should be exact and the output will be precise and verifiable.

Advantages

• Accurate solutions can be obtained
• Faster

Disadvantages

• Not suitable for real world problems
• Cannot handle imprecision and partial truth

Fusion of soft and hard computing techniques are also useful in applications such as robotics.