CHAPTER III

FUZZY INFERENCE SYSTEM

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Fuzzy systems, given a certain input, apply IF±THEN rules and fuzzy operators

to perform some action, translated into an output of the system. Before

understanding a Fuzzy Inference Rule Based System (FIRBS) it is necessary to

introduce a few definitions, namely of fuzzy sets and linguistic variables. Zadeh

(1965) developed the theory on fuzzy sets to extend the classical crisp concept

where an element either belongs or not to a certain set. In a fuzzy set, an element has

a degree of membership (varying from 0 to 1) to a set.

3.2 FUZZY SETS

Definition 3.1: The universal set X : X ĺ[0, 1] is called the universe of discourse,

or simply the universe.

Definition 3.2:(Zadeh 1975) A linguistic variable is characterized by the quintuple

(࣢,T (࣢),U,G,M), where ࣢ is the name of the variable, T (࣢) is the set of terms or

linguistic valuesof ࣢, U is the universe of the variable, G, the semantic rule that

generates the terms in T (࣢)and M is the semantic rule that associates each term or

linguistic value to its meaning through the fuzzy set M(X) (where M(X) is a fuzzy

set on U).

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 A fuzzy set is completely characterized by its membership function (MF). Since

most fuzzy sets in use have a universe of discourse X consisting of the real line R, it

would be impractical to list all the pairs defining a membership function.

Jang et al.(1997) have described the classes of parameterized functions commonly

used to define MFs of one and two dimensions. MFs of higher dimensions can be

defined similarly. Moreover, we give the derivatives of some of the MFs with

respect to their inputs and parameters. These derivatives are important for fine-

tuning a fuzzy inference system to achieve a desired input or output mapping.

3.2.1 Fuzzy Set

The membership or non-membership of an element x in the crisp set A is

represented by the characteristic function ofߤ‫ ܣ‬, defined by:

1 if x ‫
ܣ א‬
ߤ‫( ܣ‬x) = ቄ (3.2.1)
0 if x ‫ܣ ב‬

Definition 3.3(Zimmermann, 2010): A fuzzy set A in X is defined by

A = { (x, ߤ‫( ܣ‬x)) | x‫א‬X } (3.2.2)

Where ߤ‫( ܣ‬x) ‫[ א‬0, 1] is the MF of x in A. Forߤ‫)ݔ( ܣ‬, the value 1 stands for complete

membership of the set A, while 0 represents that x does not belong to the set at all.

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3.2.2 Membership Function

Definition 3.4(Ross, 2009): A fuzzy set A over the universe of discourse X,

ǹ ‫ ك‬X ĺ [0, 1] ,is described by the degree of membership ߤ‫ ܣ‬ሺxሻ ‫[ א‬0, 1] for

each x ‫א‬X.

There are different shapes of membership functions; triangular, trapezoidal,

piecewise-linear, Gaussian, Bell-shaped, etc. In this thesis, triangular membership

function is used.

Definition 3.5: A triangular MF is specified by three variables {a, b, c} as follows:

0 x ൑a
‫ ۓ‬xെa
ۖ bെa a ൑x ൑b
triangle(x; a, b, c) =
(3.2.3)
cെx
‫ ۔‬cെb b൑x ൑c
ۖ
‫ە‬0 c ൑x

by using min and max, we have an alternative expression for the preceding

equation:

xെa cെx
triangle(x; a, b, c) = max༌ቀmin ቀbെa , cെb ቁ , 0ቁ (3.2.4)

The variables {a,b,c}( with a< b < c)determine the x coordinates of the three corners

of the underlying triangular MF(Kilr et al.,1996).

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3.2.3 Operations on Fuzzy Sets

To evaluate the disjunction of the rule antecedents, we use the OR fuzzy

operation. Typically, fuzzy expert systems make use of the classical fuzzy operation

union(Ross, 2009):

ߤ‫ ׫ ܣ‬B (x) = max [ߤ‫( ܣ‬x), ߤB (x)] (3.2.5)

Similarly, in order to evaluate the conjunction of the rule antecedents, we apply the

AND fuzzy operation intersection:

ߤ‫ ת ܣ‬B (x) = min [ߤ‫( ܣ‬x), ߤB (x)]] (3.2.6)

Definition 3.7(Jang et al., 1997):If X and Yare two universal sets, then X ×Y is

the set of all ordered pairs(x , y) for x ‫א‬X and y ‫א‬Y. Let A be a fuzzy set of X

and B a fuzzy set of Y. The Cartesian product is defined as

A×B = {(z, ߤ‫×ܣ‬B (z))| z = (x, y) ‫א‬Z,Z = X ×Y} (3.2.7)

Where ߤ‫×ܣ‬B ሺzሻ= ߤ‫ ܣ‬ሺxሻ ‫ߤ ٿ‬B (x), where ‫ٿ‬denotes the t-norm operation.

3.2.4 Triangular norm

Triangular norms were introduced by Schweizer et al.,(1963) to model the

distances in probabilistic metric spaces. In fuzzy sets theory triangular norms are

extensively used to model logical connective and. The set operations intersection

and union correspond to the logic operations conjunction (AND) and disjunction

(OR), respectively. Intersection is described by the so-called triangular norm (t-

norm), denoted by ࣮(x, y), whereas union is described by the so-called triangular

conorm(t-conorm), denoted by ࣝ(x, y).

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If A and B are fuzzy subsets of X, then intersection G= A ‫ ת‬B is defined by

ߤG (x)= ࣮(ߤ‫( ܣ‬x), ߤB (x)) (3.2.8)

Definition (t-norm) 3.8(Dubois et al., 1980):A mapping ࣮: [0, 1] × [0, 1] ĺ[0, 1]

with the following four properties is called t-norm. For all x, y, z ‫[א‬0, 1],

(1) Commutativity: ࣮(x, y) = ࣮(y, x).

(2) Monotonicity: ࣮(x, y) ”࣮(x, z), if y ”z.

(3) Associativity: ࣮(x, ࣮(y, z)) = ࣮(࣮(x, y), z). (3.2.9)

(4) Linearity: ࣮(x, 1) = x.

Definition (t-conorm) 3.9(Dubois et al.,1985):A mapping ࣝ:[0, 1] × [0, 1] ĺ[0, 1]

having the following four properties is called t-conorm. For all x, y, z ‫[א‬0, 1],

(1) Commutativity: ࣝ (x, y) = ࣝ (y, x).

(2) Monotonicity: ࣝ (x, y) ”ࣝ (x, z), if y ”z.

(3) Associativity: ࣝ(x,C(y, z)) = ࣝ(ࣝ (x, y), z). (3.2.10)

(4) Linearity: ࣝ (x, 0) = x.

Definition 3.10: Fuzzy relation is used to describe the association between two

things. If ࣬ isa subset of X ×Y, then ࣬is said to be a relation between X and Y, or a

relation on X ×Y. Mathematically is given by (Zadeh, 1971),

࣬ (x, y) = {((x, y), ߤ࣬ (x , y)) | (x, y) ‫א‬X ×Y,ߤ࣬ (x , y)‫[א‬0, 1] } (3.2.11)

where ߤ࣬ ሺx , yሻ is the degree of membership for association between x and y.

A fuzzy relation is also a fuzzy set(Dubios et al.,1980).

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 A classical relation can be considered as a set of tuples, where a tuple is an

ordered pair. A binary tuple is denoted by(‫ݑ‬, ‫)ݒ‬, an example of a ternary tuple is

(‫ݑ‬, ‫ݒ‬, ‫ )ݓ‬and an example of n-ary tuple is (x1 , x2,ǥǥǥ.. x݊ ).

3.2.5 Aggregation and Implication on Fuzzy Sets

Definition 3.11: Aggregation or composition operations on fuzzy sets provide a

means for combining several sets in order to produce a single fuzzy set. T -conorms

are usually used as aggregation operators (Dubois et al., 1985). Consider the

relations

࣬1 (x, y)= { ((x, y), ߤ࣬1 (x , y))| (x, y) ‫ א‬X ×Y, ߤ࣬1 (x , y)‫[א‬0, 1]}

࣬2 (y, z)= { ((y, z), ߤ࣬2 (y , z))| (y, z) ‫ א‬Y ×Z,ߤ࣬2 (y , z)‫[א‬0, 1]} (3.2.12)

The max-min composition, denoted by ࣬1 ‫࣬ ל‬2 with MFߤ࣬1 ‫࣬ל‬2 , is definedby

࣬1 ‫࣬ ל‬2 ={((x, z), max{ (min (ߤ࣬1 (x , y),ߤ࣬2 (y , z))})|(x, z) ‫ א‬X×Z, y ‫ א‬Y} (3.2.15)

There are some other composition operations, such as the min-max composition,

denoted by ࣬1 ‫࣬ ڃ‬2 with the difference that the role of max and min areinterchanged.

തതതതതതതതതത
The two compositions are related by࣬ തതതത തതതത
1 ‫ ࣬ ڃ‬2 =࣬1 ‫ ࣬ ל‬2 .

Definition 3.12: Fuzzy implication is used to represent fuzzy rules. It is a mapping

f of an input fuzzy region A onto an output fuzzy region B according to the defined

fuzzy relation R on A×B

(y, ߤB ሺyሻ) = f ((x,ߤA ሺxሻ)) (3.2.16)

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Denote p DV³x is A´DQGq DV³y is B´, then (1.4.15) can be stated as p ĺq (if p then

q). For a fuzzy rule expressed as a fuzzy implication using the defined fuzzy relation

R, the output linguistic variable B is denoted by

B = $ƕ࣬

which is characterized by ߤB ሺyሻ = ‫ڀ‬x ( ߤA ሺxሻ ‫ ٿ‬Ɋ࣬ ሺ x , yሻ).

Definition 3.13(Zimmermann, 2010): Fuzzy reasoning, also called approximate

reasoning, is an inference procedure for deriving conclusions from a set of fuzzy

rules and one or more conditions. The compositional rule of inference is the

essential rational behind fuzzy reasoning.

A simple example of fuzzy reasoning is described here. Consider the fuzzy set A

and the fuzzy relation ࣬on A×B given by

A ={(x, ߤA ሺxሻ)|x ‫ א‬X}

࣬(x, y) ={((x, y), ߤ࣬ (x , y))|(x, y) ‫ א‬X ×Y} (3.2.17)

Fuzzy set B can be inferred from fuzzy set A and their fuzzy relation ࣬ (x, y)

according to the max-min composition

B = $ƕ ࣬ ={(y,݉ܽ‫{ݔ‬min (ߤA ሺxሻȝR(x, y))}) |x ‫ א‬X, y ‫ א‬Y} (3.2.18)

3.3 FUZZY INFERENCE SYSTEM

Precise quantitative analysis is suitable when a high degree of precision is

required. However, the task of deciding something about a pollution event by

processing a set of measurements is by its very nature an uncertain one. The

measurements are corrupted by noise, and, more importantly, the interaction among

variables is difficult to interpret within a quantitatively perfect model. The same

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origin of the phenomena under study automatically gives rise to uncertainties or

ambiguities about its evolution and the importance that play different conditions

(e.g. meteorological parameters, vehicle traffic, etc.) on the estimation. Although the

idealization of causes±effects relationships is useful aiming to the analytical

formulation of the problems, which also allows to bench mark the algorithms, it is

far from being a realistic hypothesis. On the other hand, the ability to summarize

information and to approximately describe a process plays an essential role in the

characterization of complex phenomena. FISs appear to be very good tools as they

hold the nonlinear universal approximation property, and they are able to handle

experimental data as well as a priori knowledge on the unknown solution, which is

expressed by inferential linguistic rules in the form IF±THEN whose antecedents

and consequents utilize fuzzy sets instead of crisp numbers (Abraham, 2005).The

generalized structure of a fuzzy system is presented in Fig. 3.1.

Fuzzy
Rule
Input Output
(crisp) Base
(crisp)
IWQI

Fuzzification Fuzzy Defuzzification

Process Decision Process

Figure 3.1: General structure of fuzzy inference system

In 1979 Zadeh introduced the theory of approximate reasoning. This theory provides

a powerful framework for reasoning in the face of imprecise and uncertain

information.

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Definition 3.14(Klir et al.,1996;Kosko, 1992): Universal Approximator

Let X is a compact subset of Թ݊ (i.e., a subset of Թ݊ that is closed and bounded),

and let C(X; n, m) denote the set of all continuous functions f of the form f: X ĺԹ݉ .

Then a universal Approximator, A is a set of functions g of the form g: X ĺԹ݉ that

satisfies the following: for any given function f ‫ א‬C(X; n, m) and any real number

ɂ> 0, there exists a function g‫ א‬A such that ȁ݂ሺxሻ െ ݃(x)ȁ < ߝ for all x ‫ א‬X. while

A is usually a subset of C(X; n, m), the two sets may also be disjoint.

3.3.1 Fuzzification

Definition 3.15(Zdenko et al.,, 2010): Let ‫ ܺ א ݔ‬be a linguistic variable and ‫( ݅ܣ‬x)

be a fuzzy set associated with a linguistic value ‫ ݅ܣ‬. The conversion of a

physical(numerical) value of x into a corresponding linguistic value by associating a

membership degree,

x ื ߤ‫( ݅ܣ‬x) (3.3.1)

is called fuzzification. The membership degree ߤ‫( ݅ܣ‬x) represents the fuzzy

equivalent of the value of x.

3.3.2 Fuzzy ruled based systems (FRBS)

Rule Based Systems (RBS) are a field of Expert Systems. A rule based system

can generically be defined by a set or rules of the type,

IF condition, Then action.

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The condition, also called premise, is made up of a number of antecedents that are

negated or combined by different operators such as AND or OR computed with t ±

norms or t ±conforms. In a fuzzy rule system, some variables are linguistic variables

and the determination of the MF for each fuzzy subset is critical. MFs can be

selected according to human intuition, or by learning from training data.

Fuzzy logic can be used as the basis for inference systems. A fuzzy inference is

made up of several rules with the same output variables. Given a set of fuzzy rules,

the inference result is a combination of the fuzzy values of the conditions and the

corresponding actions. For example, we have a set of ߋr rules

ܴ݅ : IF ( condition = ‫ ) ݅ܥ‬THEN ( action = ‫) ݅ܣ‬

IRUL ««ߋr , where ‫ ݅ܥ‬,‫ ݅ܣ‬are fuzzy sets. (3.3.2)

3.3.3 Defuzzification

The defuzzification process produces a crisp output for control action.

Defuzzification is necessary in fuzzy controllers, since the machines cannot

understand control signals in the form of a complete fuzzy set. There are seven

methods of defuzzifying a fuzzy set A of a universe of discourse X, including:

centroid of area(COA), bisector of area(BOA), mean of maximum(MOM), smallest

of maximum(SOM), largest of maximum(LOM)(Ocampo et al.,2006). These

defuzzification methods used in Mamdani FISs, weighted average(WA) and

Weighted sum(WS) are used in Sugeno FIS.Fig. 3.2 show various defuzzification

schemes for obtaining a crisp output. Among them, the COA is the most widely used

43
method. In this thesis, the COA method is applied for the defuzzification process

due to its calculation simplicity.

ߤ‫כ‬ A

ܼ
Centroid of area
Smallest of max. Bisector of area
Mean of max.
Largest of max.

Figure 3.2: Various defuzzification schemes for obtaining a crisp output

This section will describe three common methods of deductive inference for fuzzy

systems based on linguistic rules as shown in Fig 3.3:

Mamdani Systems
(Mamdani and Assilian [1975])

Fuzzy Inference Sugeno models

Methods (Takgi, Sugeno, and Kang [1988])

Tsukamoto models
(Tsukamoto[1979])

Figure 3.3: Different Fuzzy Inference Methods

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3.3.4 Mamdani Model

For the Mamdani model (Mamdani et al.,1975) with N rules, the ith rule is given

by

ܴ݅ : IF x1 is ‫ܣ‬1݅ AND.......... AND x݇ is ‫ ݇݅ܣ‬THEN y is ‫݅ܤ‬ (3.3.4)

IRUL ««N, where x1 , x2 , ǥ . , x݇ and y are linguistic variables corresponding to

the input and output of the system, ‫ ݆݅ܣ‬and ‫ ݅ܤ‬are fuzzy sets that define an input

and output space partitioning.

For an n-WXSOH LQSXW LQ WKH IRUP RI ³ [ LV‫ܣ‬Ԣ ´ WKH V\VWHP RXWSXW ³ \ LV ‫ ܤ‬Ԣ ´ LV

characterized by combining the rules according to

ߋr

ߤ‫ ܤ‬ƍ ሺ‫ݕ‬ሻ = ሧ( ߤ‫ܣ‬ƍ ሺxሻ ‫( ݅ܤߤ ר‬y)) (3.3.5)

݅
݅=1

Where ‫ܣ‬Ԣ = ሼ‫ܣ‬Ԣ1 , ‫ܣ‬Ԣ2 , ǥ ǥ . . , ‫ܣ‬Ԣ݊ ሽ , ‫ ܤ‬Ԣ = ሼ‫ ܤ‬Ԣ1 , ‫ ܤ‬Ԣ2 , ǥ ǥ . . , ‫ ܤ‬Ԣ݉ ሽ , ‫ܣ‬Ԣ݆ and ‫ ܤ‬Ԣ݇ are,

respectively, fuzzy sets that define an input and output space partitioning,

ߤ‫ܣ‬Ԣ݅ (x)=ߤ‫ܣ‬Ԣ ሺxሻ ‫ ݅ܣߤ ٿ‬ሺxሻ=‫=݆݊ٿ‬1( ߤ‫ ܣ‬Ԣ ݆ ‫) ݆ܣߤ ٿ‬ (3.3.6)

݅

ߤ‫ܣ‬Ԣ ሺxሻ = ‫=݆݊ٿ‬1 ߤ‫ ܣ‬Ԣ ݆ and ߤ‫ ݅ܣ‬ሺxሻ = ‫=݆݊ٿ‬1 ߤ‫ܣ‬Ԣ݆ being, respectively, the membership

degree of x to the fuzzy sets ‫ܣ‬Ԣ and ‫ ݅ܣ‬, ߤ‫( ݅ܤ‬y) = ‫݉ٿ‬
݇=1 ߤ‫ ݇ ܤ‬is the membership degree
݅

of y to the fuzzy sets ‫ ݅ܤ‬,ߤ‫ܣ‬Ԣ ݆ is the association between the jth input of ‫ܣ‬Ԣ and the
݅

45
ith rule, ߤ‫ ݇ ܤ‬is the association between the kth input of B and the ith rule, ‫ ٿ‬is the
݅

intersection operator, and ‫ ש‬is the union operator.For instance, consider that the FIS

has two inputs i and j and one output z. For the Mamdani fuzzy model, a typical rule

set with two fuzzy if-then rules can be expressed as:

Rule 1 : If x is ‫ܣ‬11 and y is ‫ܣ‬12 ; then ‫ܤ‬1 (3.3.7)

Rule 2 : If x is‫ܣ‬21 and y is ‫ܣ‬22 ; then ‫ܤ‬2 (3.3.8)

where ‫ܣ‬11 and ‫ܣ‬12 refers to the fuzzy antecedents of the first rule, respectively, and

the ‫ܤ‬1 refers to the fuzzy consequent of the first rule; the ‫ܣ‬21 and ‫ܣ‬22 refer to the

fuzzy antecedents of the second rule, respectively, and ‫ܤ‬2 refers to the fuzzy

consequent of the second rule. Finally applied defuzzification technique could be

employed to the aggregated membership function, and a value such as ܼ ‫ כ‬shown in

Fig. 3.4 would result.

3.3.5 Takagi±Sugeno±Kang Model(TSK)

Sugeno FRBS model is defined by a set of i = 1, . . . , N rules of the kind:

ܴ݅ : IF x1 is ‫ܣ‬1݅ AND.......... AND x݇ is ‫ ݇݅ܣ‬THEN z݅ = ݂݅ (x1 , ǥ ǥ . . , x݇ ) (3.3.9)

where ‫ ݆݅ܣ‬are fuzzy constraints, xj is linguistic variable corresponding to the input of

the system for j = 1,2,...,k, and zi is a numerical value obtained by evaluation of

function ݂݅ .When݂݅ (. ) are first-order polynomials,the model is termed the first-order

TSK model(Takagi et al.,1985; Sugeno et al., 1988), which is the typical form of the

46
TSK model. When ݂݅ (. )are constants, it is called the zero-order TSK model, which

can be viewed as a special case of the Mamdani model.

Rule 1

ߤ ߤ ߤ
‫ܣ‬11
‫ܣ‬12
‫ܤ‬1
min

x1 x2 Z
Input (i) Input (j)

Rule 2
ߤ ߤ
ߤ
‫ܣ‬22
‫ܣ‬21 ‫ܤ‬2

min

Z
Input (i) x1 Input (j) x2
max

ܼ‫כ‬

Figure 3.4: Graphical Mamdani (max-min) inference method with crisp inputs

47
 Rule 1 Min or
product
ߤ
ߤ
‫ܣ‬1 ‫ܤ‬1

‫ݓ‬1 ‫ݖ‬1 = ‫݌‬1 x + ‫ݍ‬1 y + ‫ݎ‬1

X
Y

Rule 2
ߤ ߤ
‫ܤ‬2

‫ܣ‬2 ‫ݓ‬2 ‫ݖ‬1 = ‫݌‬2 x + ‫ݍ‬2 y + ‫ݎ‬2

X Y Weighted average
x y

‫ݓ‬1 ‫ݖ‬1 + ‫ݓ‬2 ‫ݖ‬2

ܼ=
‫ݓ‬1 + ‫ݓ‬2

Figure 3.5: Graphical Sugeno fuzzy model with crisp inputs

48
For instance, consider that the FIS has two inputs x and y and one output z. For the

first order Sugeno fuzzy model, a typical rule set with two fuzzy if-then rules can be

expressed as:

Rule 1 : If x is ‫ܣ‬1 and y is ‫ܤ‬1 ; then ‫ݖ‬1 = ‫݌‬1 x + ‫ݍ‬1 y + ‫ݎ‬1 (3.3.10)

Rule 2 : If x is‫ܣ‬2 and y is ‫ܤ‬2 ; then ‫ݖ‬1 = ‫݌‬2 x + ‫ݍ‬2 y + ‫ݎ‬2 (3.3.11)

where ‫ܣ‬1 , ‫ܣ‬2 and ‫ܤ‬1 , ‫ܤ‬2 are the membership functions for inputs x and y,

respectively; ‫݌‬1 , ‫ݍ‬1 ,‫ݎ‬1 and ‫݌‬2 ,‫ݍ‬2 , ‫ݎ‬2 are the parameters of the output function. Fig. 3.5

illustrates the fuzzy reasoning mechanism for this Sugeno model to derive an output

function f from a given input vector (x, y).

3.3.6 Characteristic of Fuzzy logic

Some of the essential characteristics of fuzzy logic relate to the following

(Machado et al.,1992).

¾ Exact reasoning is viewed as a limiting case of approximate reasoning.

¾ Everything is a matter of degree.

¾ Knowledge is interpreted as a collection of elastic or, equivalently, fuzzy

constraint on a collection of variables.

¾ Inference is viewed as a process of propagation of elastic constraints.

¾ Any logical system can be fuzzified.

There are two main characteristics of fuzzy systems that give them better

performance for specific applications.

¾ Fuzzy systems are suitable for uncertain or approximate reasoning,

especially for a system with a mathematical model that is difficult to derive.

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 ¾ Fuzzy logic allows decision making with estimated values under incomplete

or uncertain information.

3.3.7Applications of fuzzy systems

For the past few years, particularly in Japan, USA and Germany,

approximately 1,000 commercial and industrial fuzzy systems have been

successfully developed. The number of industrial and commercial applications

worldwide appears likely to increase significantly in the near future.

The first application of fuzzy logic is due to Mamdani of the University of

London, U.K., who in 1974 designed an experimental fuzzy control for a steam

engine. In 1980, a Danish company (F.L. Smith & Co. A/S) used fuzzy theory in

cement kiln control. Three years later, Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. (Japan) implemented

fuzzy control of chemical injection for water purification plants.

The first fuzzy controller was exhibited at Second IFSA Congress in 1987.This

controller originated from Omron Corp., a Japanese company which began research

in fuzzy logic in 1984 and has since applied for over 700 patents. Also in 1987, the

Sendai Subway Automatic Train Operations Controller, designed by the Hitachi

team, started operating in Sendai, Japan. The fuzzy logic in this subway system

makes the journey more comfortable with smooth braking and acceleration. In 1989,

Omron Corp. demonstrated fuzzy work stations at the Business Show in Harumi,

Japan. Such a workstation is just a RISC±based computer, equipped with a fuzzy

50
inference board. This fuzzy inference board is used to store and retrieve fuzzy

information, and to make fuzzy inferences.

The application of fuzzy theory in consumer products started in 1990 in Japan.

An example is the ´IX]]\ ZDVKLQJ PDFKLQH´ ZKLFK DXWRPDWLFDOO\ judges the

material, the volume and the dirtiness of the laundry and chooses the optimum

washing program and water flow. Another example is the fuzzy logic found in the

electronic fuel injection controls and automatic cruise control systems of cars,

making complex controls more efficient and easier to use.

Fuzzy logic is also being used in vacuum cleaners, camcorders, television sets

etc. In 1993, Sony introduced the Sony PalmTop, which uses a fuzzy logic decision

tree algorithm to perform handwritten (using a computer light pen)Kanji character

recognition. For instance, if one would write 253, then the Sony Palmtop can

distinguish the number 5 from the letter S. There are many products based on Fuzzy

Logic in the market today. Most of the consumer products in SEA/Japan advertise

Fuzzy Logic based products for consumers. We are beginning to see many

automotive applications based on Fuzzy logic. Here are few examples seen in the

market. By no means has this list included all possible fuzzy logic based products in

the market.

The most successful domain has been in fuzzy control of various physical or

chemical characteristics such as temperature, electric current, flow of liquid/gas,

motion of machines, etc. Also, fuzzy systems can be obtained by applying the

51
principles of fuzzy sets and logic to other areas, for example, fuzzy knowledge-

based systems such as fuzzy expert systems which may use fuzzy IF-THEN

rules;´IX]]\ VRIWZDUH HQJLQHHULQJ´ Zhich may incorporate fuzziness in programs

and data; fuzzy databases which store and retrieve fuzzy information: fuzzy pattern

recognition which deals with fuzzy visual or audio signals; applications to medicine,

economics, and management problems which involve fuzzy information processing.

When fuzzy systems are applied to appropriate problems, particularly the type of

problems described previously, their typical characteristics are faster and smoother

response than with conventional systems. This translates to efficient and more

comfortable operations for such tasks as controlling temperature, cruising speed, for

example. Furthermore, this will save energy, reduce maintenance costs, and prolong

machine life. In fuzzy systems, describing the control rules is usually simpler and

easier, often requiring fewer rules, and thus the systems execute faster than

conventional systems. Fuzzy systems often achieve tractability, robustness, and

overall low cost. In turn, all these contribute to better performance. In short,

conventional methods are good for simple problems, while fuzzy systems are

suitable for complex problems or applications that involve human descriptive or

intuitive thinking.

3.4 NEURAL NETWORK

The study of brain-style computation has its roots over 50 years ago in the work

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Organization of Behavior (1949). The early work in artificial intelligence was torn

52
between those who believed that intelligent systems could best be built on

computers modeled after brains, and those like Minsky and Papert who believed that

intelligence was fundamentally symbol processing of the kind readily modeled on

the von Neumann computer. For a variety of reasons, the symbol-processing

approach became the dominant theme in artificial intelligence. The 1980s showed a

rebirth in interest in neural computing: Hopfield(1985) provided the mathematical

foundation for understanding the dynamics of an important class of networks;

Rumelhart and McClelland (1986)introduced the back propagation learning

algorithm for complex, multi-layer networks and thereby provided an answer to one

of the most severe criticisms of the original perceptron work.Perhaps the most

important advantage of neural networks is their adaptivity. Neural networks can

automatically adjust their weights to optimize their behavior as pattern recognizers,

decision makers, system controllers, predictors, etc. Adaptivity allows the neural

network to perform well even when the environment or the system being controlled

varies over time. There are many control problems that can benefit from continual

nonlinear mode ling and adaptation. While fuzzy logic performs an inference

mechanism under cognitive uncertainty, computational neural networks offer

exciting advantages, such as learning, adaptation, fault-tolerance, parallelism and

generalization. A brief comparative study between fuzzy systems and neural

networks in their operations in the context of knowledge acquisition, uncertainty,

reasoning and adaptation is presented in the table 3.1(Gupta et al.,1991)

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 Table 3.1: Properties of fuzzy systems and neural networks.

Skills Fuzzy Systems Neural Networks

Knowledge Inputs Human experts Sample sets
acquisition Tools Interaction Algorithms
Uncertainty Information Quantitive and Qualitive Quantitive
Cognition Decision making Perception

Reasoning Mechanism Heuristic search Parallel

Speed Low computations
High

Adaptation Fault-tolerance Low Very high

Learning Induction Adjusting weights
Natural Implementation Explicit Implicit
language Flexibility High Low

A computing system made up of a number of simple, highly interconnected

processing elements, which process information by their dynamic state response to

external inputs by Dr. Robert Hecht-Nielsen (1989).

Neural networks are valuable instrument for broad applications in different

scopes of the management as an essential element for data measurement systems

that change the organization tendency toward the relationship between data and firm

strategy (Lisbo,2000).

Neural Networks are typically organized in layers. Layers are made up of a

number of interconnected 'nodes' which contain an 'activation function'. Patterns are

presented to the network via the 'input layer', which communicates to one or more

'hidden layers' where the actual processing is done via a system of weighted

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'connections'. The hidden layers then link to an 'output layer' where the answer is

output as shown in the Fig. 3.6.Neural networks are

Input layer Hidden layer Output layer

Figure 3.6: Structure of Neural Network

universal approximators (Def. 3.15), and they work best if the system you are using

them to model has a high tolerance to error. Neural network have lately been

recognized as an important tool for constructing membership functions, operations

on membership functions, fuzzy inference rules, and other context dependent entities

in fuzzy set theory. They are increasingly utilized for this purpose in many

application areas.

3.5 FUZZY NEURAL NETWORK (FNN)

As a main ingredient of soft computing, fuzzy neural network (FNN) is a hybrid

intelligent system that possesses the capabilities of adjusting adaptively and

intelligent information processing. In Lee et al.(1974,1975) firstly proposed the

fuzzy neurons and some systematic results on FNN's were developed by softening

the McCulloch-Pitts neurons in the middle 1970s when the interest in neural

networks faltered.

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 A fuzzified neural network means such a FNN whose inputs, outputs and

connection weights are all fuzzy set, which is also viewed as a pure fuzzy system

(wang, 1994). Through the internal relationships among fuzzy sets of a fuzzified

neural network, a fuzzy input can determine a fuzzy output.

Every intelligent technique has particular computational properties (e.g. ability to

learn, explanation of decisions) that make them suited for particular problems and

not for others. For example, while neural networks are good at recognizing patterns,

they are not good at explaining how they reach their decisions. Fuzzy logic systems,

which can reason with imprecise information, are good at explaining their decisions

but they cannot automatically acquire the rules they use to make those decisions.

These limitations have been a central driving force behind the creation of intelligent

hybrid systems where two or more techniques are combined in a manner that

overcomes the limitations of individual techniques. Hybrid systems are also

important when considering the varied nature of application domains. Many

complex domains have many different component problems, each of which may

require different types of processing. If there is a complex application which has two

distinct sub-problems, say a signal processing task and a serial reasoning task, then a

neural network and an expert system respectively can be used for solving these

separate tasks. The use of intelligent hybrid systems is growing rapidly with

successful applications in many areas including process control, engineering design,

financial trading, credit evaluation, medical diagnosis, and cognitive

simulation(Hayashi et al., 1993).

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 While fuzzy logic provides an inference mechanism under cognitive uncertainty,

computational neural networks offer exciting advantages, such as learning,

adaptation, fault-tolerance, parallelism and generalization. To enable a system to deal

with cognitive uncertainties in a manner more like humans, one may incorporate the

concept of fuzzy logic into the neural networks.

A Fuzzy Neural Network or neuro-fuzzy system(Puyin et al.,2004) is a learning

machine that finds the parameters of a fuzzy system (i.e., fuzzy sets, fuzzy rules) by

exploiting approximation techniques from fuzzy neural networks as shown in

Fig. 3.7.

Fuzzy Rules

Fuzzy Inference System Neural Network

Data Output

Fuzzy Sets

Figure 3.7: Fuzzy Neural Network

The computational process envisioned for fuzzy neural systems is as follows. It

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biological neuronal morphologies, followed by learning mechanisms. This leads to

the following three steps in a fuzzy neural computational process

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 ¾ development of fuzzy neural models motivated by biological neurons,

¾ models of synaptic connections which incorporates fuzziness into neural

network,

¾ development of learning algorithms (that is the method of adjusting the

synaptic weights)

Two possible models of fuzzy neural systems are(Robert,1995)

¾ Model 1: In response to linguistic statements, the fuzzy interface block

provides an input vector to a multi-layer neural network. The neural network

can be adapted (trained) to yield desired command outputs or decisions as

shown in Fig.3.8.

¾ Model 2: A multi-layered neural network drives the fuzzy inference

mechanism as shown in Fig.3.9.

Fuzzy Neural Decisions

Interface Perception as Network
neural inputs
(Neural
outputs)

Linguistic
statements Learning
algorithm

Figure 3.8: The first model of fuzzy neural system

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 Knowledge - base

Neural
Inputs Neural Neural outputs Fuzzy Decisions
Network Inference

Learning
algorithm

Figure 3.9: The second model of fuzzy neural system

The first applications of fuzzy neural networks to consumer products appeared on

the (Japanese and Korean) market in 1991. Some examples include air conditioners,

electric carpets, electric fans, electric thermo-pots, desk type electric heaters, forced-

flue kerosene fan heaters, kerosene fan heaters, microwave ovens, refrigerators, rice

cookers, vacuum cleaner, washing machines, clothes driers, photocopying machines,

and word processors.

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