Devising a method for finding a family of membership functions to bifuzzy quantities

Abstract

This paper has considered a task to expand the scope of application of fuzzy mathematics methods, which is important from a theoretical and practical point of view. A case was examined where the parameters of fuzzy numbers’ membership functions are also fuzzy numbers with their membership functions. The resulting bifuzziness does not make it possible to implement the standard procedure of building a membership function. At the same time, there are difficulties in performing arithmetic and other operations on fuzzy numbers of the second order, which practically excludes the possibility of solving many practical problems. A computational procedure for calculating the membership functions of such bifuzzy numbers has been proposed, based on the universal principle of generalization and rules for operating on fuzzy numbers. A particular case was tackled where the original fuzzy number’s membership function contains a single fuzzy parameter. It is this particular case that more often occurs in practice. It has been shown that the correct description of the original fuzzy number, in this case, involves a family of membership functions, rather than one. The simplicity of the proposed and reported analytical method for calculating a family of membership functions of a bifuzzy quantity significantly expands the range of adequate analytical description of the behavior of systems under the conditions of multi-level uncertainty. A procedure of constructing the membership functions of bifuzzy numbers with the finite and infinite carrier has been considered. The method is illustrated by solving the examples of using the developed method for fuzzy numbers with the finite and infinite carrier. It is clear from these examples that the complexity of analytic description of membership functions with hierarchical uncertainty is growing rapidly with the increasing number of parameters for the original fuzzy number’s membership function, which are also set in a fuzzy fashion. Possible approaches to overcoming emerging difficulties have been described.