Fuzzy Systems

J.-S. R. Jang, Neuro-fuzzy and soft computing, Matlab curriculum series, 1997
 What is fuzzy thinking?
• Experts rely on common sense when they solve problems
• Expert knowledge is vague and ambiguous - How to represent in a computer?
• Fuzzy logic is not logic that is fuzzy, but logic that is used to describe fuzziness.
Fuzzy logic is the theory of fuzzy sets, which calibrate vagueness.
• Boolean logic used sharp distinctions. It forces us to draw lines between
members of a class and nonmembers.
• For instance, we may say, Tom is tall because his height is 181 cm. If we drew a
line at 180cm, we would find that David, who is 179cm, is short.
• Fuzzy Logic reflects how people think. It attempts to model our sense of words,
our decision making and our common sense. As a result, it is leading to new,
more human, intelligent systems.
• Fuzzy logic is based on the idea that all things admit of degrees. Temperature,
height, speed, distance, beauty – all come on a sliding scale.
 What is fuzzy thinking?

Slow Speed = Fast Speed =

0 1

Slowest Slow Fast Fastest

• Humans primarily use fuzzy terms: large, small, fast, slow, warm, cold, ….
• We say: “if the weather is nice and I have a little time, I will probably go for a walk in the park”
• We don’t say: “If the temperature is above 24 degrees and the cloud cover is less than 10% and
I have 3 hours time, I will go for a walk with a probability of 0.47.”
 Fuzzy Logic: Motivation

• Lotfi Zadeh: “Make use of the leeway of fuzziness.”

• Fuzziness as a principle of economics:
o Precision is expensive.
o Only apply as much precision to a problem as necessary.
• Example (1): Backing into a parking space
How long would it take if we had to park the car with a precision of ±2 mm?

• Example (2): Temperature control

How much effort would be involved in controlling the temperature of the water flowing into your
bathtub by ±1o C ?

Leeway (N) – 1. The amount of freedom to move or act that is available

2. Margin of safety
 Fuzzy Logic?
• Fuzzy Logic a superset of Boolean Logic
• Fuzzy Logic is a set of mathematical principles for knowledge representation
based on degrees of membership.
• Unlike two-valued Boolean logic, fuzzy logic is multivalued. It deals with
degrees of membership and degrees of truth.
• Fuzzy logic uses the continuum of logical values between 0 (completely
false) and 1 (completely true).
• Instead of just black and white, it employs the spectrum of colors, accepting
that things can be partly true and partly false at the same time.
 Fuzzy Logic is not just Probability

• A lot of discussion about the nature of fuzzy logic since its appearance in the 1970s

• Many regard it as just a form of probability and question the soundness of its basis and
its reliability – the name “fuzzy” has not helped

• Both fuzzy logic and probability deal with the issue of uncertainty

• Both use a continuous 0 to 1 scale for measuring uncertainty

• But despite their apparent similarity, there is an important difference between the two
paradigms...
Fuzzy Logic and Probability - The Difference

• Probability deals with likelihood – the chance of something happening or something

having a certain property

• Fuzzy logic deals not with likelihood of something having a certain property, but the
degree to which it has that property

• Fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic provide a mathematical tool for handling this second
kind of uncertainty

• Despite the associated debate, its usefulness as a powerful tool for solving problems is
well established.

Fuzzy logic and probability - Paper

 Fuzzy Logic and Probability - The Difference
Suppose you have an Event 'V' and your degree of certainty 'P' for output Y, so in Probability, you say
that I'm 'P' certain that V's output will be Y, BUT after V occurs, P isn't true for this instance of V as P
is either 1 or 0, as you already know the output by now.

For example you have an exam tomorrow for subject X, and you say I'm pretty sure that the exam will
be 60% easy, 30% very easy, and 10% hard, but after you take the exam you know now that the exam
is hard, so the other probabilities are all 0 and Hard is 1.

In fuzzy logic the membership P of Y to a certain Set is a fact and stays as it is after the event is
executed so if the subject is 0.8 easy and the exam had been hard the subject will still have the
membership of 0.8 to easy.

So probability has no meaning after the event occurs, but membership is like a fact/knowledge it will
still be true after the event.

The difference between probability and fuzzy logic is clear when we consider the underlying
concept that each attempts to model. Probability is concerned with the un-decidability in the
outcome of clearly defined and randomly occurring events, while fuzzy logic is concerned
with the ambiguity or un-decidability inherent in the description of the event itself. Fuzziness
is often expressed as ambiguity rather than imprecision or uncertainty and remains a
characteristic of perception as well as concept.
 Different types of uncertainty
Classical uncertainty
o “Head or a Tails?”
o Uncertain and precise
o Mostly can be handle by probability theory
Vague
o “Steve is tall”
o Certain but imprecise
o Can be handle by fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic
Imprecise
o “Mark weighs between 50kg and 65 kg”
o Uncertain and imprecise
o Probability or possibilities theory
Pros Why use Fuzzy Logic?
• Conceptually easy to understand w/ “natural” math
• Tolerant to imprecise data
• Universal Approximation: Can model arbitrary nonlinear functions
• Intuitive
• Based on linguistic terms
• Convenient way to express expert and common sense knowledge
• Requires little data
• Applicable to all kinds of uncertainty
• Fully comprehensive
• Fast and easy to compute
• Doesn’t require information about correlations
• Conservative, but not hyper-conservative
• In between worst case and probability
• Back calculations easy to solve

Cons
• Controversial
• Not a cure-all approach
• Crisp/precise models can be more efficient and even more convenient
• Other approaches might be formally verified to work
 What are fuzzy systems and Why ?
• Traditional logic is two-valued – any proposition is either true or false

• Problem solving in real-life must deal with partially true or partially false propositions
• Imposing precision may be difficult and lead to less than optimal solutions

• Application of hard boundaries for categorisation gives unsatisfactory results

• Fuzzy systems handle imprecise information by assigning degrees of truth - using fuzzy logic

• It works on fuzzy logic, which superset of conventional (Boolean) logic that has been
extended to handle the concept of partial truth -- truth values between "completely true"
and "completely false".

• It provides a systematic, intuitive and mathematical means of handling uncertainty in

natural and artificial systems

• Intelligent control and decision support systems based on fuzzy logic have proved their
superiority over conventional hard logic based systems
Fuzzy System
 Fuzzy system Applications

• Most renowned fuzzy control system in use -

Sendai subway (since 1987)

• Appliances - vacuum cleaners, washing machines,

camcorders

• Fuzzy auto transmission & ABS in cars

• Fuzzy lift control system

• Used in combination with other intelligent system

methodologies to develop hybrid fuzzy-expert,
neuro-fuzzy, or fuzzy-GA systems
 Fuzzy system Applications

Antilock Brake System (ABS)

• Nonlinear and dynamic in nature
• Inputs for Intel Fuzzy ABS
• Brake, 4 WD, Feedback, Wheel
speed, Ignition
• Outputs : Pulsewidth, Error lamp
Temperature Controller

• Problem : Change the speed of a heater fan, based on the room

temperature and humidity.
• A temperature control system has four settings
• Cold, Cool, Warm, and Hot
• Humidity can be defined by:
• Low, Medium, and High
• Using this we can define the fuzzy set.
 Fuzzy system Applications

Rules
Air Conditioning Controller Example:

• IF Cold then Stop

• If Cool then Slow
• If OK then Medium
• If Warm then Fast
• IF Hot then Blast
 Fuzzy system Applications
Mapping Inputs to Outputs
Benefits of using Fuzzy Logic
 Fuzzy Sets
Sets with fuzzy boundaries

A = Set of tall people

Crisp set A Fuzzy set A

1.0

1.0 Membership
.9 function
.5

5’10’’ Heights

Transition from “belong to a set” to “not belong to a set”

 Fuzzy Sets

Conventional (Boolean) Set

38.7°C
38°C
40.1°C 41.4°C Fuzzy Set
42°C
39.3°C
“Strong Fever” 38.7°C
37.2°C 38°C
40.1°C 41.4°C

42°C
39.3°C
“Strong Fever”
“More-or-Less” Rather Than “Either-Or” ! 37.2°C
 Fuzzy sets

• The x-axis represents the universe of discourse – the range of all possible values
applicable to a chosen variable. In our case, the variable is the man height. According to
this representation, the universe of men’s heights consists of all tall men.
• The y-axis represents the membership value of the fuzzy sets. In our case, the fuzzy set of
“tall men” maps height values into corresponding membership values.
 Fuzzy Sets
Example: the set of “young people”

We can also define a characteristic function for this set:

Fuzzy set theory offers a variable notion of membership:

– A person of age 21 could still belong to the set of young people, but only
to a degree of less than one, maybe 0.9.
- Now the set young contains people with ages between 20 and 30 with a
linearly decreasing degree of membership.
 Linguistic Variable
• Covering the domain of a variable with several fuzzy sets, together with a corresponding
semantics, defines a linguistic variable.
• Linguistic variable age
• For example, the statement “John is tall” implies that the linguistic variable John takes the
linguistic value tall.
• Using fuzzy sets allows us to incorporate the fact that no sharp boundaries between these
groups exist
• The corresponding fuzzy sets overlap in certain areas, forming non-crisp or fuzzy boundaries.
• This way of defining fuzzy sets over the domain of a variable is referred to as granulation
- in contrast to the division into crisp sets (quantization)
 Membership Functions (MFs)
In fuzzy systems, the transition from “belong to a set” to “not belong to a set” is gradual, and
this smooth transition is characterized by the membership functions that give fuzzy sets
flexibility in modeling commonly used linguistic expressions, such as “the water is hot” or
“the temperature is high”
NOTE: The fuzziness does not come from the randomness of the constituent members of the
sets, but from the uncertain and imprecise nature of abstract thoughts and concepts

Characteristics of MFs:
Subjective measures
Not probability functions

MFs “tall” in Asia

.8
.5 “tall” in the US

“tall” in NBA
.1
5’10’’ Heights
 Fuzzy Sets and MFs
Formal definition:
A fuzzy set A in X is expressed as a set of ordered pairs:

Fuzzy set

Membership
function
(MF)

Universe or
universe of discourse

A fuzzy set is totally characterized by a membership function (MF).

 Discrete Universes
Fuzzy Sets
• Fuzzy set C = “desirable city to live in”
o X = {SF, Boston, LA} (discrete and non-ordered)
o C = {(SF, 0.9), (Boston, 0.8), (LA, 0.6)}
• Fuzzy set A = “sensible number of children”
o X = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} (discrete universe)
o A = {(0, .1), (1, .3), (2, .7), (3, 1), (4, .6), (5, .2), (6, .1)}

Continuous Universes

• Fuzzy set B = “about 50 years old”

o X = Set of positive real numbers (continuous)
o B = {(x, µB(x)) | x ϵ X}
 Alternative Notation

A fuzzy set A can be alternatively denoted as follows:

X is discrete

X is continuous

Note that S and integral signs stand for the union of

membership grades; “/” stands for a marker and does not
imply division.
 Fuzzy Partition
Fuzzy partitions formed by the linguistic values “young”,
“middle aged”, and “old”:

lingmf.m