Processing individual fuzzy attributes for fuzzy rule induction

Fuzzy systems that can automatically derive fuzzy if-then rules and membership functions from numeric data have recently been developed. In this paper, we propose two new fuzzy learning methods for automatically deriving membership functions and fuzzy if-then rules from a set of given training examples. The proposed methods first select relevant attributes and build appropriate initial membership functions. They then simplify the intervals and the membership functions of each attribute before forming a decision table. These attributes and membership functions are then used in a decision table to derive the final fuzzy if-then rules and membership functions. Experimental results for the Iris data show that our methods can achieve a high degree of accuracy. The proposed methods are thus useful in constructing membership functions and in managing uncertainty and vagueness. They can also reduce the time and effort needed to develop a fuzzy knowledge base. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.