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An introduction to Fuzzy Logic concept

Milena Velba∗

First Version: June 2010

Revised: September 2011

European Journal Of Marketing ∗∗

Abstract
Fuzzy logic is derived from fuzzy set theory dealing with reasoning that is approximate rather
than precisely deduced from classical predicate logic. It can be thought of as the application side
of fuzzy set theory dealing with well thought out real world expert values for a complex
problem (Klir 1997).
Degrees of truth are often confused with probabilities. However, they are conceptually distinct;
fuzzy truth represents membership in vaguely defined sets, not likelihood of some event or
condition. For example, if a 100-ml glass contains 30 ml of water, then, for two fuzzy sets,
Empty and Full, one might define the glass as being 0.7 empty and 0.3 full. Note that the
concept of emptiness would be subjective and thus would depend on the observer or designer.
Another designer might equally well design a set membership function where the glass would
be considered full for all values down to 50 ml. A probabilistic setting would first define a
scalar variable for the fullness of the glass, and second, conditional distributions describing the
probability that someone would call the glass full given a specific fullness level. Note that the
conditioning can be achieved by having a specific observer that randomly selects the label for
the glass, a distribution over deterministic observers, or both. While fuzzy logic avoids talking
about randomness in this context, this simplification at the same time obscures what is exactly
meant by the statement the 'glass is 0.3 full'.

Keywords: Fuzzy, logic, maintenance

Fuzzy Logic. Vol. 6

No. 1, 2011 pp. 92-109
Emerald Group
Publishing Limited

DOI
10.1108/09604520710720
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692

∗
School of Business, University of Connecticut. [email protected]
∗∗
European Journal of marketing, Volume 17(1) pp. 92–109, ISSN: 0022-4359 Copyright © 2011 by
New York University. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
Fuzzy Logic
Fuzzy logic allows for set membership values to range (inclusively) between 0 and 1,
and in its linguistic form, imprecise concepts like "slightly", "quite" and "very".
Specifically, it allows partial membership in a set. It is related to fuzzy sets and
possibility theory. It was introduced in 1965 by Lotfi Zadeh at the University of
California, Berkeley.
Fuzzy logic is controversial in some circles and is rejected by some control engineers
and by most statisticians who hold that probability is the only rigorous mathematical
description of uncertainty. Critics also argue that it cannot be a superset of ordinary
set theory since membership functions are defined in terms of conventional sets.

Applications
Fuzzy logic can be used to control household appliances such as washing machines
(which sense load size and detergent concentration and adjust their wash cycles
accordingly) and refrigerators.
A basic application might characterize subranges of a continuous variable. For
instance, a temperature measurement for anti-lock brakes might have several separate
membership functions defining particular temperature ranges needed to control the
brakes properly. Each function maps the same temperature value to a truth value in
the 0 to 1 range. These truth values can then be used to determine how the brakes
should be controlled.

In this image, cold, warm, and hot are functions mapping a temperature scale. A
point on that scale has three "truth values" — one for each of the three functions. For
the particular temperature illustrated with the vertical line, the three truth values
could be interpreted as describing the temperature as, say, "fairly cold" (blue arrow),
"slightly warm" (yellow arrow), and "not hot" (red arrow).
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Misconceptions and controversies

Fuzzy logic is the same as "imprecise logic".
Fuzzy logic is not any less precise than any other form of logic: it is an organized and
mathematical method of handling inherently imprecise concepts. The concept of
"coldness" cannot be expressed in an equation, because although temperature is a
quantity, "coldness" is not. However, people have an idea of what "cold" is, and
agree that there is no sharp cutoff between "cold" and "not cold", where something is
"cold" at N degrees but "not cold" at N+1 degrees — a concept classical logic cannot
easily handle due to the principle of bivalence. The result has no set answer so it is
believed to be a 'fuzzy' answer.
Fuzzy logic is a new way of expressing probability.
Fuzzy logic and probability are different ways of expressing uncertainty. While both
fuzzy logic and probability theory can be used to represent subjective belief, fuzzy
set theory uses the concept of fuzzy set membership (i.e. how much a variable is in a
set), probability theory uses the concept of subjective probability (i.e. how
probable do I think that a variable is in a set). While this distinction is mostly
philosophical, the fuzzy-logic-derived possibility measure is inherently different
from the probability measure, hence they are not directly equivalent. However, many
statisticians are persuaded by the work of Bruno de Finetti that only one kind of
mathematical uncertainty is needed and thus fuzzy logic is unnecessary. On the other
hand, Bart Kosko argues that probability is a subtheory of fuzzy logic, as probability
only handles one kind of uncertainty. He also claims to have proven a derivation of
Bayes' theorem from the concept of fuzzy subsethood. Lotfi Zadeh, the creator of
fuzzy logic, argues that fuzzy logic is different in character from probability, and is
not a replacement for it. He has created a fuzzy alternative to probability, which he
calls possibility theory. Other controversial approaches to uncertainty include
Dempster-Shafer theory and rough sets.
Fuzzy logic will be difficult to scale to larger problems.
This criticism is mainly due to the fact that there exist problems with conditional
possibility, the fuzzy set theory equivalent of conditional probability (see Halpen
(2003), section 3.8). This makes it difficult to perform inference. However there have
not been many studies comparing fuzzy-based systems with probabilistic ones.

Examples where fuzzy logic is used

Automobile and other vehicle subsystems, such as automatic transmissions, ABS and
cruise control (e.g. Tokyo monorail)
Air conditioners
The Massive engine used in the Lord of the Rings films, which helped show huge
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scale armies create random, yet orderly movements

Cameras
Digital image processing, such as edge detection
Rice cookers
Dishwashers
Elevators
Washing machines and other home appliances
Video game artificial intelligence
Language filters on message boards and chat rooms for filtering out offensive text
Pattern recognition in Remote Sensing
Fuzzy logic has also been incorporated into some microcontrollers and
microprocessors, for instance, the Freescale 68HC12.

How fuzzy logic is applied

Fuzzy Set Theory defines Fuzzy Operators on Fuzzy Sets. The problem in applying
this is that the appropriate Fuzzy Operator may not be known. For this reason, Fuzzy
logic usually uses IF/THEN rules, or constructs that are equivalent, such as fuzzy
associative matrices.
Rules are usually expressed in the form:
IF variable IS set THEN action
For example, an extremely simple temperature regulator that uses a fan might look
like this:
IF temperature IS very cold THEN stop fan
IF temperature IS cold THEN turn down fan
IF temperature IS normal THEN maintain level
IF temperature IS hot THEN speed up fan
Notice there is no "ELSE". All of the rules are evaluated, because the temperature
might be "cold" and "normal" at the same time to differing degrees.
The AND, OR, and NOT operators of boolean logic exist in fuzzy logic, usually
defined as the minimum, maximum, and complement; when they are defined this
way, they are called the Zadeh operators, because they were first defined as such in
Zadeh's original papers. So for the fuzzy variables x and y:
NOT x = (1 - truth(x))
x AND y = minimum(truth(x), truth(y))
x OR y = maximum(truth(x), truth(y))
There are also other operators, more linguistic in nature, called hedges that can be
applied. These are generally adverbs such as "very", or "somewhat", which modify
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the meaning of a set using a mathematical formula.

In application, the programming language Prolog is well geared to implementing
fuzzy logic with its facilities to set up a database of "rules" which are queried to
deduct logic. This sort of programming is known as logic programming.
Once fuzzy relations are defined, it is possible to develop fuzzy relational databases.
The first fuzzy relational database, FRDB, appeared in Maria Zemankova's
dissertation. After, some other models arose like the Buckles-Petry model, the Prade-
Testemale Model, the Umano-Fukami model or the GEFRED model by J.M.
Medina, M.A. Vila et al. In the context of fuzzy databases, some fuzzy querying
languages have been defined, highlighting the SQLf by P. Bosc et al. and the FSQL
by J. Galindo et al. These languages define some structures in order to include fuzzy
aspects in the SQL statements, like fuzzy conditions, fuzzy comparators, fuzzy
constants, fuzzy constraints, fuzzy thresholds, linguistic labels and so on.

Other examples
If a man is 1.8 meters, consider him as tall:
IF male IS true AND height >= 1.8 THEN is_tall IS true; is_short IS false
The fuzzy rules do not make the sharp distinction between tall and short, that is not
so realistic:
IF height <= medium male THEN is_short IS agree somewhat
IF height >= medium male THEN is_tall IS agree somewhat
In the fuzzy case, there are no such heights like 1.83 meters, but there are fuzzy
values, like the following assignments:
dwarf male = [0, 1.3] m
short male = (1.3, 1.5]
medium male = (1.5, 1.8]
tall male = (1.8, 2.0]
giant male > 2.0 m
For the consequent, there are also not only two values, but five, say:
agree not = 0
agree little = 1
agree somewhat = 2
agree a lot = 3
agree fully = 4
In the binary, or "crisp", case, a person of 1.79 meters of height is considered short.
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If another person is 1.8 meters or 2.25 meters, these persons are considered tall.
The crisp example differs deliberately from the fuzzy one. We did not put in the
antecedent
IF male >= agree somewhat AND ...
as gender is often considered as a binary information. So, it is not so complex as
being tall.

Formal fuzzy logic

In mathematical logic, there are several formal systems that model the above notions
of "fuzzy logic"; most of them belong among so-called t-norm fuzzy logics. Note
that they use a different set of operations than above mentioned Zadeh operators.

Propositional fuzzy logics

The most important propositional fuzzy logics are:
Basic propositional fuzzy logic BL is an axiomatization of logic where conjunction is
defined by a continuous |t-norm, and implication is defined as the residuum of the t-
norm. Its models correspond to BL-algebras.
Łukasiewicz fuzzy logic is a special case of basic fuzzy logic where conjunction is
Łukasiewicz t-norm. It has the axioms of basic logic plus an axiom of double
negation (so it is not intuitionistic logic), and its models correspond to MV-algebras.
Gödel fuzzy logic is a special case of basic fuzzy logic where conjunction is Gödel t-
norm. It has the axioms of basic logic plus an axiom of idempotence of conjunction,
and its models are called G-algebras.
Product fuzzy logic is a special case of basic fuzzy logic where conjunction is
product t-norm. It has the axioms of basic logic plus another axiom, and its models
are called product algebras.
Monoidal t-norm logic MTL is a generalization of basic fuzzy logic BL where
conjunction is realized by a left-continuous t-norm. Its models (MTL-algebras) are
prelinear commutative bounded integral residuated lattices.
Rational Pavelka logic is a generalization of multi-valued logic. It is an extension of
Łukasziewicz fuzzy logic with additional constants.
All these logics encompass the traditional propositional logic (whose models
correspond to Boolean algebras).

Predicate fuzzy logics

These extend the above-mentioned fuzzy logics by adding universal and existential
quantifiers in a manner similar to the way that predicate logic is created from
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propositional logic. The semantics of the universal resp. existential quantifier in t-

norm fuzzy logics is the infimum resp. supremum of the truth degrees of the
instances of the quantified subformula.
Effectiveness for fuzzy logics
The notions of a "decidable subset" and "recursively enumerable subset" are basic
ones for classical mathematics and classical logic. Then, the question of a suitable
extension of such concepts to fuzzy set theory arises. A first proposal in such a
direction was made by E.S. Santos by the notions of fuzzy Turing machine, Markov
normal fuzzy algorithm and fuzzy program. Successively, L. Biacino and G. Gerla
proposed the following definition where Ü denotes the set of rational numbers in
[0,1]. A fuzzy subset µ : S [0,1] of a set S is recursively enumerable if a recursive
map h : S×N Ü exists such that, for every xin S, the function h(x,n) is increasing
with respect to n and µ(x) = lim h(x,n). We say that µ is decidable if both µ and its
complement –µ are recursively enumerable. An extension of such a theory to the
general case of the L-subsets is proposed in a paper by G. Gerla. The proposed
definitions are well related with fuzzy logic. Indeed, the following theorem holds
true (provided that the deduction apparatus of the fuzzy logic satisfies some obvious
effectiveness property).
Theorem. Any axiomatizable fuzzy theory is recursively enumerable. In particular,
the fuzzy set of logically true formulas is recursively enumerable in spite of the fact
that the crisp set of valid formulas is not recursively enumerable, in general.
Moreover, any axiomatizable and complete theory is decidable.
It is an open question to give supports for a Church thesis for fuzzy logic claiming
that the proposed notion of recursive enumerability for fuzzy subsets is the adequate
one. To this aim, further investigations on the notions of fuzzy grammar and fuzzy
Turing machine should be necessary (see for example Wiedermann's paper). Another
open question is to start from this notion to find an extension of Gödel’s theorems to
fuzzy logic.

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