Fuzzy Logic Toolbox

Fuzzy Inference Systems

Fuzzy inference is the process of formulating the mapping from a given input to an output using fuzzy logic. The mapping then provides a basis from which decisions can be made, or patterns discerned. The process of fuzzy inference involves all of the pieces that are described in the previous sections: membership functions, fuzzy logic operators, and if-then rules. There are two types of fuzzy inference systems that can be implemented in the Fuzzy Logic Toolbox: Mamdani-type and Sugeno-type. These two types of inference systems vary somewhat in the way outputs are determined. References to descriptions of these two types of fuzzy inference systems can be found in the bibliography, [Jan97, Mam75, Sug85].

Fuzzy inference systems have been successfully applied in fields such as automatic control, data classification, decision analysis, expert systems, and computer vision. Because of its multidisciplinary nature, fuzzy inference systems are associated with a number of names, such as fuzzy-rule-based systems, fuzzy expert systems, fuzzy modeling, fuzzy associative memory, fuzzy logic controllers, and simply (and ambiguously) fuzzy systems. Since the terms used to describe the various parts of the fuzzy inference process are far from standard, we will try to be as clear as possible about the different terms introduced in this section.

Mamdani's fuzzy inference method is the most commonly seen fuzzy methodology. Mamdani's method was among the first control systems built using fuzzy set theory. It was proposed in 1975 by Ebrahim Mamdani [Mam75] as an attempt to control a steam engine and boiler combination by synthesizing a set of linguistic control rules obtained from experienced human operators. Mamdani's effort was based on Lotfi Zadeh's 1973 paper on fuzzy algorithms for complex systems and decision processes [Zad73]. Although the inference process we describe in the next few sections differs somewhat from the methods described in the original paper, the basic idea is much the same.

Mamdani-type inference, as we have defined it for the Fuzzy Logic Toolbox, expects the output membership functions to be fuzzy sets. After the aggregation process, there is a fuzzy set for each output variable that needs defuzzification. It's possible, and in many cases much more efficient, to use a single spike as the output membership function rather than a distributed fuzzy set. This is sometimes known as a singleton output membership function, and it can be thought of as a pre-defuzzified fuzzy set. It enhances the efficiency of the defuzzification process because it greatly simplifies the computation required by the more general Mamdani method, which finds the centroid of a two-dimensional function. Rather than integrating across the two-dimensional function to find the centroid, we use the weighted average of a few data points. Sugeno-type systems support this type of model. In general, Sugeno-type systems can be used to model any inference system in which the output membership functions are either linear or constant.

If-Then Rules

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