Membership Value Assignments

There are various methods to assign the membership values or the membership
functions to fuzzy variables.
The methods for assigning the membership values are listed as follows:
Intuition,
Inference,
Rank ordering,
Angular fuzzy sets,
Neural networks,
Genetic algorithms, and
Inductive seasoning

Intuition
Intuition is based on the humans own intelligence and understanding to
develop the membership functions. The thorough knowledge of the problem has
to be known, the knowledge regarding the linguistic variable should also be
known.
For example, consider the speed of a dc-motor. The shape of the universe of
speed given in rpm is shown in Fig. given below.

Fig.: Membership for fuzzy variable speed in rpm

The curves represent membership function corresponding to various fuzzy

variables. The range of speed is splitted into low, medium, and high. The curves
differentiate the ranges, said by humans. The placement of curves is
approximate over the universe of discourse; the number of curves and the
overlapping of curves is an important criteria to be considered while defining
membership functions.

Inference
This method involves the knowledge to perform deductive reasoning. The
membership function is formed from the facts known and knowledge.

Rank Ordering
The polling concept is used to assign membership values by rank ordering
process. Preferences are above for pairwise comparisons and from this the
ordering of the membership is done.

Angular Fuzzy Sets

The angular fuzzy sets are different from the standard fuzzy sets in their
coordinate description. These sets are defined on the universe of angles, hence
are repeating shapes every 2 cycles. Angular fuzzy sets are applied in
quantitative description of linguistic variables known truth-values. When
membership of value 1 is true and that of 0 is false, then in between 0 and 1 is
partially true or partially false.

Neural Networks
Neural networks are used to simulate the working network of the neurons
in the human brain. The concept of the human brain is used to perform
computation on computers.

Genetic Algorithm
Genetic algorithm (GA) uses the concept of Darwins theory of evolution.
Darwins theory is based on the rule, survival of the fittest. Darwin also
postulated that the new classes of living things came into existence through the
process of reproduction, crossover, and mutation among existing organisms.

Inductive Reasoning
The membership can also be generated by the characteristics of inductive
reasoning. The induction is performed by the entropy minimization principle,
which clusters the parameters corresponding to the output classes. For inductive
reasoning method, there should be a well-defined database for the inputoutput
relationships. This method can be suited for complex systems where the data are
abundant and static. When the data are dynamic, this method is not suited,
since the membership functions continually change with time.