Unit III (Fuzzy Logic 1 INTRODUCTION)

Lecture 1 # Basic Concept of Fuzzy Logic

Although probability theory is an old and effective tool to handle uncertainty but it can be
applied only to the situations whose characteristics are based on the random processes, that is,
process in which the occurrence of events is strictly determined by chance. . However, in reality
there are large set of problems whose characteristics are determined by non-random processes.
Here uncertainty may arise due to partial information about the problem or information which is
not fully reliable, or inherent imprecision in the language which the problem is defined. Or due
to receipt of information from more than one source about the problem which is conflicting.
In such situations, fuzzy set theory exhibits immense potential for effective solving of the
uncertainty in the problems. Fuzziness means ‘vagueness ‘. It is an excellent mathematical tool
to handle uncertainty arises due to vagueness. Understanding human speech and recognizing
handwritten characters are some common stances where fuzziness manifests.
It was proposed by Lotfi. A. Zadeh in 1965. The fuzzy set theory provides a mechanism
for representing linguistic constructs such as “tall”, “small”, “high”, “low”, “medium” etc. In
general fuzzy logic provides an inference structure that enables appropriate human reasoning
capabilities; the theory fuzzy logic is based on related graded membership as so are the function
of cognitive process. The utility of fuzzy sets lies in their ability to model uncertain or
ambiguous data as shown in figure 3a.

Fuzzy Logic
Imprecise Decision
System
And vague data

Figure 3a a fuzzy logic system accepting imprecise data and providing a decision
In fuzzy systems, values are indicated by a number called truth values ranging from 0 to 1, where
0.0 absolute falseness 1.0 represents absolute truth.
Fuzzy sets that represent fuzzy logic provide mean to model uncertainty associated with
vagueness, imprecision and lack of information regarding a problem. Consider meaning of “short
person”. For an individual X, a short person may be one whose height below 4.25 inches. For
other individual Y, a “short person” may be whose height is below or equal to 3.90 inches. The
“short” is called linguistic descriptor. The term “short“provides some meaning to both individual
X and Y but they do not provide definition. The term short is called linguistic variable. It
represent imprecision in existing system.
Dr Zadeh proposed the set membership idea to make suitable decisions when uncertainty occurs.
Consider the “short” example discussed previously. If we take “short” as height equal to or less
that 4 feet then 3.90” would easily become the member of set “short” and 4.25” will not be
member of set “short”. The membership value is “1” if it belongs to the set and “0” if it is not a
member of set. Thus membership in the set is found to be binary, that is either the element is
member of set or not. It can be indicated as

1 if x belongs to A
µA(x) = {
0 if x does not belongs to A

Where (x) is the membership of element x in the set A and A is the entire set on the universe.
If it is said that the height is 5.6” one might think a bit before deciding whether to consider it as
short or not short (i. e. tall). Moreover one might reckon it as short for man but tall for women.
Let’s take a statement “John is short” and give it a truth value of 0.70. If 0.70 represented a
probability value it would be read as “There is 70% chance that John is short “, meaning that it is
still believed that John is either short or not, and there exist 70% chance which group he belongs
to. Fuzzy terminology actually translates to “ John’s degree of membership in the set of short
people is 0.07” by which it meant if all the people fuzzy set “short” are considered and lined up,
John positioned 70% of the way to shortest.
Fuzzy logic operates on the concept of membership. For example, the statement “Elizabeth is
old” can be translated as Elizabeth is a member of the set of old people and can be written µ
( old ), µ is membership function that can return a value between 0 and 1 depending on the
degree of membership.
Consider figure 3b the objective term “tall” has been assigned fuzzy values. At 150 cm and
below, a person does not belong to the fuzzy class while for above 180, the person certainly
belongs to the class “tall”. The fuzzy concept “tallness “ can be extended into “short”, “medium”
and “tall” as shown in figure 3 c.

1 Tall
Membership

150 180 210 ht (cm)

Figure 3 c Graph for membership functions for fuzzy set “tall”

Short Medium Tall

1
Membership

150 180 210 Height (cm)

Figure 4 c Graph showing membership functions for fuzzy sets “short”, “medium” and
“tall”
Fuzzy logic also consists of fuzzy inference engine or fuzzy rule –base to perform approximate
reasoning somewhat similar to human brain. Computing with words seems to be slightly
futuristic phrase today since only certain aspects. of natural language can be represented by
calculus of fuzzy sets.
Fuzzy sets form the building block for fuzzy IF-THEN rules which has the general form “IF x is
̂ THEN y is ̃ “where ̂ ̃ are fuzzy sets.
Lecture # 2 Fuzzy Sets and Crisp Sets
Fuzzy vs. CRISP Sets

The logic which demands for binary (1, 0) handling is termed as CRISP in domain for fuzzy set
theory.
EX.
“Is today Sunday” Answer will be (yes/no) or (1/0)
The situation where values are accepted between “yes” and “no” or between 1 -0 is termed as
fuzzy.
Extremely Honest (1)

Ex. “Is Ramesh honest” Honest (0.5)

Dishonest (0)

Figure 2a fuzzy membership values

The Boolean logic is based on CRISP set theory similarly fuzzy logic is based on fuzzy set
Theory.

CRISP Set- (Review of Claasical Set Theory)

Universe of discourse or universal set is the set which with reference to a particular context
contains all possible elements having same characteristics and from which set can be formed.

For example universal set of days

Set of Days = {Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat}
Set
It is collection of well defined objects. In set a particular element must be distinguished from
other elements of set
Ex. Set of Days = {Sun, Mon Thu, Fri, Sat}
or A={x: p(x)} here x is an element of set A and satisfies property p(x)

Terminologies
Membership Indicated by . x A means element x is member of set A.
Cardinality
The no of elements in a set is called cardinality of set. Suppose a given set A= {4, 5, 6, 7} then
cardinality of set A, denoted by |A| and will be 4.
Null Set
A set with no elements is called null set and denoted by ф.
Singleton Set
It has a single element.
Subset
Given sets A, B over universal set, A is said to be subset of B is A is contained in B mean A B
(Proper subset) and A B (improper subset).
Superset
If A is subset of B, it means B is superset of A. It is represented as A

Power Set.
All possible subset of a set including null set is called the power set.

For Example if A= {2, 4, 6, 7} then power set of A, denoted by Ap is given as

{ ф, {2}, {4}, {6}, {7}, {2, 4}, {2, 6},{2,7},[4,6},(4,7},{6,7}, {2,4,6}, {2, 4, 7},{4,6,7}, {2, 6,7},
{2,4,6,7}}
Operations on sets

We can perform following operations on sets.

1. Union
Given two sets A and B, union of A and B is denoted by A B.
Given A= {1, 2, 3} and B= {2, 3, 5}
Then A B= {1, 2, 3, 5}
2. Intersection
. Given two sets A and B, intersection of A and B is denoted by A B.
Given A= {1, 2, 3} and B= {2, 3, 5}
Then A B= {2, 3}
3. Complement
Given universe of discourse U and set A, then complement of A is denoted by Ac . If U=
{1, 2, 5, 6, 8} and A= {1, 5} then Ac=U-A= {2, 6, 8}.

4. Difference-
Given two sets A and B, difference of A and B is denoted by A-B.
Given A= {1, 2, 3} and B= {2, 3, 5}
Then A - B= {1}

Properties of Crisp Sets

The following properties are holds on crisp sets.

B=B A and A∩B = B∩A

1. Commutative Law

Associative Law
2. AUB)UC=AU(BUC) and (A∩B) ∩UC=A∩(B∩C)

(AUB) ∩C=(A∩C)U(B∩C) and (A∩B)UC=(AUB) ∩(BUC)

3. Distributive Law

4. Idempotent Law AUA=A and A∩A=A

5. Identity AUΦ =A, A , A = and A
 6.
Law of Absorption AU(A∩B)=A

7.
Transitivity B and B C then A C

8.
Involution Ac)c =A

9.
Law of Contradiction
A∩Ac =Φ

Law of Excluded middle A U Ac =U

10.

(AUB)c = Ac ∩ Bc. and (A∩B)c =Ac U Bc

11. De Morgan’s Law

Fuzzy Set

Fuzzy sets support a flexible sense of membership of elements to a set. It means in fuzzy set
theory, many degree of membership are allowed. Thus, a membership function µÃ (x) is
associated with set à such that the function maps every element of the universe of discourse X
(or reference set) to the interval [0, 1]. The mapping is written as µÃ(x)→ [0, 1]

We will study in next lecture in detail.

Lecture # 3 Fuzzy Set Theory and Operations

Fuzzy Set
Fuzzy sets support a flexible sense of membership of elements to a set. It means in fuzzy set
theory, many degree of membership are allowed. Thus, a membership function µÃ (x) is
associated with set à such that the function maps every element of the universe of discourse X
(or reference set) to the interval [0, 1]. The mapping is written as µÃ(x) → [0, 1]

A fuzzy set is defined as follows:

If X is a universe of discourse and x is a particular element of X, then a fuzzy set à defined on X

may be written as collection of ordered pairs

à = {(x, µÃ(x)): x Є Ã}

Where, each (x, µÃ(x)) is called singleton. In crisp set term µÃ(x) is dropped.
EXAMPLE

Let X = {g1, g2, g3, g4, g5} be reference set of students. Let à is fuzzy set of “smart”

students Ã= {(g1, 0.3) (g2, 0.4) (g3, 0.8) (g4, 1) (g5, 0.8)}. It means “smartness” of g1 is

30 %.