FUZZY LOGIC AND ITS APPLICTIONS

Abstract
In modelling and optimizing real world systems and processes, one usually ends up with a linear
or nonlinear programming problem, namely maximizing one or more objective functions subject
to a set of constraint equations or inequalities. For many cases, the constraints do not need to be
satisfied exactly, and the coefficients involved in the model are imprecise in nature and have to be
described by fuzzy numbers to reflect the real-world nature. The resulting mathematical
programming problem is referred to as a fuzzy mathematical programming problem. Over the past
decades, a great deal of work has been conducted to study fuzzy mathematical programming
problems and a large volume of results have been obtained. However, many issues have not been
resolved. This research is thus undertaken to study two types of fuzzy mathematical programming
problems. The first type of problems is fuzzy linear programming in which the objective function
contains fuzzy numbers. To solve this type of problems, we firstly introduce the concept of fuzzy
max order and non-dominated optimal solution to fuzzy mathematical programming problems
within the framework of fuzzy mathematics. Then, based on the new concept introduced, various
theorems are developed, which involve converting the fuzzy linear programming problem to a four
objective linear programming problem of non-fuzzy members. The theoretical results and methods
developed are then validated and their applications for solving fuzzy linear problems are
demonstrated through examples. The second type of problems which we tackle in this research is
fuzzy linear programming in which the constraint equations or inequalities contain fuzzy numbers.
For this work, we first introduce a new concept, the α-fuzzy max order. Based on this concept, the
general framework of an α-fuzzy max order method is developed for solving fuzzy linear
programming problems with fuzzy parameters in the constraints. For the special cases in which
the constraints consist of inequalities containing fuzzy numbers with isosceles triangle or
trapezoidal membership functions, we prove that the feasible solution space can be determined by
the respective 3n or 4n non-fuzzy inequalities. For the general cases in which the 5 constraints
contain fuzzy numbers with any other form of membership functions, robust numerical algorithms
have been developed for the determination of the feasible solution space and the optimal solution
to the fuzzy linear programming problem in which the constraints contain fuzzy parameters.
Further, by using the results for both the first and second types of problems, general algorithms
have also been developed for the general fuzzy linear programming problems in which both the
objective function and the constraint inequalities contain fuzzy numbers with any forms of
membership functions. Some examples are then presented to validate the theoretical results and
the algorithms developed, and to demonstrate their applications.

INTRODUCTION
The theory of fuzzy logic is based on the notion of relative graded membership, as inspired
by the processes of human perception and cognition. Lotfi A. Zadeh published his first famous
research paper on fuzzy sets in 1965. Fuzzy logic can deal with information arising from
computational perception and cognition, that is, uncertain, imprecise, vague, partially true, or
without sharp boundaries. Fuzzy logic allows for the inclusion of vague human assessments in
computing problems. Also, it provides an effective means for conflict resolution of multiple
criteria and better assessment of options. New computing method is based on fuzzy logic that can
be used in the development of intelligent systems for decision making, identification, pattern
recognition, optimization and control.

Fuzzy logic is extremely useful for many people involved in research and development
including engineers ( electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical, aerospace, agricultural, biomedical ,
computer, environmental, geological, industrial and mechatronics), mathematicians ,computer
software developers and researchers, natural scientists (biology, chemistry, earth science and
physics ), medical researchers, social scientists (economics, management, political science and
psychology ), public policy analysts and jurists .

Indeed, the applications of fuzzy logic, once thought to be an obscure mathematical

curiosity can be found in many engineering and scientific works. Fuzzy logic has been used in
numerous applications such as facial pattern recognition, air conditioners, washing machines,
vacuum cleaners, antiskid baking systems, transmission systems, control of subways systems and
unmanned helicopters, knowledge-based systems for multi objective optimization for power
systems, weather forecasting systems, models for new product pricing or project risk assessment,
medical diagnosis treatment plans, and stock trading. Fuzzy logic has been successfully used in
numerous fields such as control systems engineering, image processing, power engineering,
industrial automation, robotics, consumer electronics and optimization. This branch of
mathematics has instilled new life into scientific fields that have been dormant for long time.

Definition - SET

“The collection of well-defined distinct objects is known as set”

The word ‘well defined’ means a specific property which makes it easy to identify whether the
given object belongs to the set or not. The word distinct means that the objects of the set must be
different.

Examples

(i) Set of natural numbers = N = {1, 2, 3, 4 …}

(ii) Set of vowels = {a, e, i, o, u}

(iii) Set of fruits = {apple, banana, grapes}

Classical Set or Conventional Set

In classical set theory, the membership of elements in a set is assessed in binary term according
to bivalent condition i.e an element either belongs or does not belong to set.

Classical set is a collection of distinct objects. Each individual entity is called a member or an
element of the set. The classical set is defined in such a way that the universe of discourse is split
into two groups:

(i) Members
(ii) Non-members

Let the universe of discourse or universal set be ‘U’.

- The collection of elements in the universe is called the whole set.

- For a crisp set ‘A’ in universe ‘U’
- An object x is the member of the given set A, i.e x belongs to A.
- An object is not a member of set A , i.e x does not belong to A

Crisp Set
A crisp set is defined by crisp boundaries, which contain the precise location of the set boundaries.

- A crisp set can have a total membership or non-membership.

- The crisp set is based on bivalued logic, i.e. 0, 1
- Element is either the member of a set or not.
- Always has a digital design.
A crisp set ‘X’ can be defined as a group of elements over the universal set ‘U’, where a
random element can be a part of set X or not.

Conclusion

There is no difference in classical set and crisp set. In fuzzy theory, classical set is called
the crisp set. Since they are same, so there is no difference between classical and crisp set.

Generally, we define a set A over a universal set U as

A = { x : x U such that x hassome property P }

In a crisp set, an element is either a member of the set or not.

A set defined using a characteristic function or membership function  ( x ) that assigns a

value of either 0 or 1 to each element x of the universal set, thereby discriminating between
members and non-members of the crisp set under consideration.

The membership function  A ( x ) is defined from A to {0, 1} as

1 if x  A
 A ( x) = 
0 if x  A

The crisp set A is written as A =  ( x,  A ( x ) ) x  A

EXAMPLE

Let A = { 2, 3, 5 }
 Here, 2  A   A (2) = 1
3 A   A (3) = 1
5 A   A (5) = 1
4 A   A (4) = 0

A = {(2,1),(3,1),(5,1),(4,0)}

EXAMPLE

Let F = Set of fruits

= { x : x is a fruit }

Here, apple  F  F (apple) = 1

orange  F  F (orange) = 1
mango  F  F ( mango) = 1
peach  F  F ( peach ) = 1
onion  F  F (onion ) = 0
ginger  F  F (ginger ) = 0

EXAMPLE

Let V = Set of vegetables

= { x : x is a vegetables }
Here,
Tomato V   (tomato) = 1
Patato V   ( Patato) = 1
Onion V   (Onion ) = 1
Apple V   ( Apple) = 0

Orange V   (Orange) = 0
Carrot V   (Carrot ) = 1
Turnip V   (Turnip ) = 1
Mango V   ( Mango) = 0
FUZZY SET

“FUZZY means “vagueness”. Fuzziness occurs when boundary of a piece of information is not
clear-cut. Fuzzy set were introduced by Lotfi A Zadeh (1965) as an extension of classical notion
of sets.

Classical set theory allows the membership of elements in the set-in binary terms, a bivalent
condition – an element either belongs or does not belong to the set. Fuzzy set theory permits
gradual assessment of membership of elements in a set, described with the aid of a membership
function valued in the real unit interval [0.1]

EXAMPLES

1. Let X = {g1, g2, g3, g4, g5} be the reference set of students. Let à be the fuzzy set of
“smart” students, where “smart” is fuzzy term.
à = {(g1,0.4), (g2,0.5), (g3,1), (g4,0.9, )(g5,0.8)}

Here à indicates that the smartness of g1 is 0.4 and so on.

2. Suppose we have a set of tall people. We assume that 6 feet is standard of tall people. Then
all people who has height greater than 6 feet are considered as tall and less than 6 foot are
not tall people.

3.
 Let X = 1, 2,3, 4
B = ( x, B ( x ) | x  X ), B ( x ) = 0.1x
B = (1,0.1),(2,0.2),(3,0.3),(4,0.4)

LOGIC

Logic is a branch of science that studies correct forms of reasoning. It plays a fundamental role in
such discipline as Philosophy, Mathematics and Computer science. Philosophy and Mathematics,
logic has ancient roots.

Modern logic originated in the work of the great Greek Philosopher Aristotle (322-384 BCE), the
most famous student of Plato (c.347 – c.427 BCE) and one of the most influential thinkers of all
time. Further advances were made by the Greek Stoic Philosopher Chrysippus of Soli (c.206-c.278
BCE), who developed the basic concept of what we now call propositional logic.

DEFINITION

“The study of correct processes of thinking or reasoning, especially regarding making inferences
is called Logic.”

A proposition is a statement that is either true or false, but not both. It is denoted by T if it is true,
F if it is false.

Logical Operators:

Logical operators are symbols or words that transform one or more propositions, or connect two
or more propositions into a larger logical expression.

We can use the logical operator ‘AND’.

Logical Expressions:

A logical expression is a collection of at least one proposition and a number of logical operators.

Example:

p → q is a logical expression and ~ p is also a logical expression.

Truth Tables

Truth tables are mathematical tables in which all possible truth values of a logical expression are
mapped out. A truth table for a proposition, p and its negation ~p is below.

p ~p

T F

F T

Types of Logic

Formal Logic

It is the study of inference with purely format content. It can be expressed as a particular
application of a wholly abstract rule that is not about any particular thing or property.

Example

Traditional syllogistic logic and modern symbolic logic

1. Syllogistic Logic:

It can be found in the works of Aristotle, making it the earliest known formal study.

2. Symbolic Logic:

It is the study of symbolic abstractions that capture the formal features of logical inference,
divided into two main branches

• Propositional Logic
• Predicate Logic
Informal Logic

It is the study of natural language arguments. The study of fallacies is an important branch of
informal logic.

Fuzzy Logic

The term fuzzy logic was introduced by Dr. Lotfi Zadeh of the University of California at Berkeley
in 1965 with the proposal of fuzzy set theory. He was working on the problem of computer
understanding of natural language.

Fuzzy logic is an approach to computing based on “degree of truth” rather than the usual “true or
false” (1 or 0) Boolean Logic on which the modern computer is based.

Take a look at the following diagram. It shows that in fuzzy systems, the values are indicated by
a number in the range from 0 to 1. Here 1.0 represents absolute truth and 0.0 represents absolute
falseness. The number which indicates the value in fuzzy systems is called the truth value.

In other words, we can say that fuzzy logic is not logic that is fuzzy, but logic that is used to
describe fuzziness. There can be numerous other examples like this with the help of which we
can understand the concept of fuzzy logic.
Fuzzy inference system

Fuzzy inference system comprises If – then rules. Fuzzy sets and fuzzy operators are the subjects
and verbs of fuzzy logic. If-then rule statements are used to formulate the conditional statements
that comprise fuzzy logic

A single fuzzy if-then rule assumes the form

If x is A then y is B

where A and B are linguistic values defined by fuzzy sets on the ranges
(universes of discourse) X and Y, respectively

The if-part of the rule “x is A” is called the antecedent or premise, while the then-part of the rule
“y is B” is called the consequent or conclusion.

An example of such a rule might be:

If service is good, then trip is average

The consequent of a rule can also have multiple parts, e.g. If temperature is cold then hot water
valve is open and cold-water valve is shut.

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 pattern
discerned.

Dinner for Two

a 2-input, 1-output, 3-rule system

The inputs are crisp All rules are evaluated The results of the The results is

non-fuzzy) numbers in parallel using fuzzy rules are combined a crisp

limited to a specific reasoning. and distilled. (non-fuzzy)

range. number.
Fuzzy inference process comprises the following five parts:

1. Fuzzification of the input variables

2. Application of the fuzzy operator (AND or OR) in the antecedent
3. Implication from the antecedent to the consequent
4. Aggregation of the consequent across the rules
5. Defuzzification

EXAMPLE

Step 1: Fuzzify Inputs

The first step is to take the inputs and determine the degree to which they belong to each
of the appropriate fuzzy sets via membership functions. This example is built on three rules, and
each of the rules depends on resolving the inputs into a number of different fuzzy linguistic sets:

Service is poor, service is good, food is rancid; food is delicious, and so on.

Before the rules can be evaluated, the inputs must be fuzzified according to each of these linguistic
sets. For example, to what extent is the food really delicious?

0.7

1. Fuzzify
Inputs delicious Result of
fuzzification

food is delicious

food = 8

Input
The following figure shows how well the food at the hypothetical restaurant (rated on a scale of 0
to 10) qualifies, (via its membership function), as the linguistic variable delicious.

In this case, we rated the food as an 8, which, given your graphical definition of delicious,
corresponds to µ = 0.7 for the delicious membership function. In this manner, each input is
fuzzified over all the qualifying membership functions required by the rules.

Step 2: Apply Fuzzy Operator

After the inputs are fuzzified, you know the degree to which each part of the antecedent is satisfied
for each rule. If the antecedent of a given rule has more than one part, the fuzzy operator is applied
to obtain one number that represents the result of the antecedent for that rule.

This number is then applied to the output function. The input to the fuzzy operator is two or more
membership values from fuzzified input variables. The output is a single truth value.

The fuzzy OR operator from rule 3 simply selects the maximum of the two values, 0.7, and the
fuzzy operation for rule 3 is complete.
Step 3: Apply Implication Method

The consequent is reshaped using a function associated with the antecedent (a single member).
The input for the implication process is a single number given by the antecedent, and the output is
a fuzzy set. Implication is implemented for each rule.

Step 4: Aggregate All Outputs

Decisions are based on the testing of all of the rules in a FIS. The rules must be combined in some
manner in order to make a decision. An aggregation is the process by which the fuzzy sets that
represent the outputs of each rule are combined into a single fuzzy set. An aggregation only occurs
once for each output variable, just prior to the fifth and final step, defuzzification. The input of the
aggregation process is the list of truncated output functions returned by the implication process for
each rule. The output of the aggregation process is one fuzzy set for each output variable.
Objectives

The objective of the thesis is to develop new robust methods for solving fuzzy linear programming
problems. Based on existing theories and previous work in this field, the specific objectives of the
thesis are as follows:

i. Develop a robust theory and method to solve fuzzy linear programming problems with
objective functions involving fuzzy numbers, and demonstrate its applications.
ii. Develop a robust method and algorithms to solve fuzzy linear programming problems in
which the constraints involve fuzzy numbers and demonstrate its application.
iii. Develop a robust method and algorithms to solve fuzzy linear programming problems in
which both the constraints and objective function involve fuzzy coefficients for various
forms of membership functions.
Literature Review

This thesis is focused on the study of fuzzy linear programming which involves fuzzy parameters.
The field of study involves the complex interaction of various subjects including fuzzy set theories,
mathematical programming, multi-objective mathematical programming and fuzzy mathematical
programming. Hence, in this chapter, we review the existing theories and methods in these fields
relevant to this research. Two different approaches may be used for the arithmetic calculation of
fuzzy numbers, including the approach based on the interval arithmetic on the α-cuts of the fuzzy
numbers and the approach based on the extension principle of Zadeh (1965, 1975).

where the first formula states that the objective cx should be essentially smaller than or equal to
an aspiration level z0 of the z, while the second formula says that Ax should be essentially smaller
than or equal to b. Combining the fuzzy goal and the fuzzy constraints together, the fuzzy linear
programming was expressed by Zimmerman (1978). In the constraint method, only one objective
function is kept as an objective function, all others are taken as irregularity constraints (Haimes
1971, 1974). In recent years efforts have been made to study the solution to fuzzy mathematical
programming problems from both a theoretical and computational point of view. The fuzzy linear
programming (FLP) problem was formulated by Tanaka et al (1991) as a parametric linear
programming problem. The FLP problem was formulated as a semi-finite linear programming
problem with infinitely many objective functions by Luhandjura (1984). Maeda (2001) recently
formulated the FLP problem as a two objective linear programming problem but this work is only
applicable to problems which involve fuzzy numbers with triangle membership functions.

In this chapter we formulated the FLP problem as a multi-objective linear programming (MOLP)
problem with four-objective functions. This work is in line with Maeda’s (2001) development. In
comparison, our work is applicable to problems involving fuzzy numbers with any form of
membership functions. The rest of the thesis is organized as follows. In order to find all optimal
or non-dominated or all weak non-dominated solutions to the FLP problem, it suffices to find all
complete or Pareto or weak Pareto optimal solutions to the MOLP problem. Now, associated with
the MOLP problem, we consider the following weighted linear programming problem defined by
Kuhn and Tucker (1951) and Zadeh (1963).

Conclusion
In this thesis, we study the theoretical and computational aspects of fuzzy mathematical
programming problems involving fuzzy parameters. The research consists mainly of two parts.
The first part focuses on fuzzy linear programming problems with fuzzy parameters in the
objective function, namely.

The concepts of fuzzy max order, non-dominated optimal solution to fuzzy linear programming,
complete optimal solution and Pareto optimal solution are introduced within the framework for
fuzzy mathematical programming.

The second part studies fuzzy linear programming problems in which the constraints involve fuzzy
parameters. For this part, the key results achieved include the following aspects.

A new concept, the α-fuzzy max order, has been developed for the study of fuzzy mathematical
programming problems in which both the objective function and the constraint
equations/inequalities contain fuzzy coefficients.

Based on the α-fuzzy max order, an α-fuzzy max order method has been developed for solving
fuzzy mathematical problems with fuzzy parameters in both the objective function and the
constraints.

For constraints involving fuzzy numbers with any nonlinear forms of membership functions,
numerical algorithms have been developed for the determination of the feasible solution space and
the optimal solution of the general fuzzy linear programming problem where both the objective
function and the constraints contain fuzzy numbers

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