Interval Type-2 fuzzy voter design for fault tolerant systems

A voting scheme constitutes an essential component of many fault tolerant systems. Two types of voters are commonly used in applications of real-valued systems: the inexact majority and the amalgamating voters. The inexact majority voter effectively isolates erroneous modules and is capable of reporting benign outputs when a significant disagreement is detected. However, an application specific voter threshold must be provided. On the other hand, amalgamating voter, such as the weighted average voter, reduces the influence of faulty modules by averaging the input values together. Unlike the majority voters, amalgamating voters are not capable of producing benign outputs. In the past, a Type-1 (T1) fuzzy voting scheme was introduced, allowing for both smooth amalgamation of voter inputs and effective signalization of benign outputs. The presented paper proposes an extension to the fuzzy voting scheme via incorporating Interval Type-2 (IT2) fuzzy logic. The IT2 fuzzy logic allows for an improved handling of uncertain assumptions about the distributions of noisy and erroneous inputs which are essential for correct design of the fuzzy voting scheme. The proposed voter design features robust performance when the uncertainty assumptions dynamically change over time. The IT2 fuzzy voter architecture was compared against the average voter, inexact majority voter, and the T1 fuzzy voter using a refined experimental harness. The reported results demonstrate improved availability, safety and reliability of the presented IT2 fuzzy voting scheme.     

$alpha$-Plane Representation for Type-2 Fuzzy Sets: Theory and Applications

This paper 1) reviews the alpha-plane representation of a type-2 fuzzy set (T2 FS), which is a representation that is comparable to the alpha-cut representation of a type-1 FS (T1 FS) and is useful for both theoretical and computational studies of and for T2 FSs; 2) proves that set theoretic operations for T2 FSs can be computed using very simple alpha-plane computations that are the set theoretic operations for interval T2 (IT2) FSs; 3) reviews how the centroid of a T2 FS can be computed using alpha-plane computations that are also very simple because they can be performed using existing Karnik Mendel algorithms that are applied to each alpha-plane; 4) shows how many theoretically based geometrical properties can be obtained about the centroid, even before the centroid is computed; 5) provides examples that show that the mean value (defuzzified value) of the centroid can often be approximated by using the centroids of only 0 and 1 alpha -planes of a T2 FS; 6) examines a triangle quasi-T2 fuzzy logic system (Q-T2 FLS) whose secondary membership functions are triangles and for which all calculations use existing T1 or IT2 FS mathematics, and hence, they may be a good next step in the hierarchy of FLSs, from T1 to IT2 to T2; and 7) compares T1, IT2, and triangle Q-T2 FLSs to forecast noise-corrupted measurements of a chaotic Mackey-Glass time series.     

Uncertainty measures for general Type-2 fuzzy sets

Five uncertainty measures have previously been defined for interval Type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2 FSs), namely centroid, cardinality, fuzziness, variance and skewness. Based on a recently developed α-plane representation for a general T2 FS, this paper generalizes these definitions to such T2 FSs and, more importantly, derives a unified strategy for computing all different uncertainty measures with low complexity. The uncertainty measures of T2 FSs with different shaped Footprints of Uncertainty and different kinds of secondary membership functions (MFs) are computed and are given as examples. Observations and summaries are made for these examples, and a Summary Interval Uncertainty Measure for a general T2 FS is proposed to simplify the interpretations. Comparative studies of uncertainty measures for Quasi-Type-2 (QT2), IT2 and T2 FSs are also performed to examine the feasibility of approximating T2 FSs using QT2 or even IT2 FSs.     

Type-2 fuzzy control for a flexible-joint robot using voltage control strategy

Type-1 fuzzy sets cannot fully handle the uncertainties. To overcome the problem, type-2 fuzzy sets have been proposed. The novelty of this paper is using interval type-2 fuzzy logic controller (IT2FLC) to control a flexible-joint robot with voltage control strategy. In order to take into account the whole robotic system including the dynamics of actuators and the robot manipulator, the voltages of motors are used as inputs of the system. To highlight the capabilities of the control system, a flexible joint robot which is highly nonlinear, heavily coupled and uncertain is used. In addition, to improve the control performance, the parameters of the primary membership functions of IT2FLC are optimized using particle swarm optimization (PSO). A comparative study between the proposed IT2FLC and type-1 fuzzy logic controller (T1FLC) is presented to better assess their respective performance in presence of external disturbance and unmodelled dynamics. Stability analysis is presented and the effectiveness of the proposed control approach is demonstrated by simulations using a two-link flexible-joint robot driven by permanent magnet direct current motors. Simulation results show the superiority of the IT2FLC over the T1FLC in terms of accuracy, robustness and interpretability.     

An interval type-2 fuzzy logic system-based method for prediction interval construction

This paper introduces a new non-parametric method for uncertainty quantification through construction of prediction intervals (PIs). The method takes the left and right end points of the type-reduced set of an interval type-2 fuzzy logic system (IT2FLS) model as the lower and upper bounds of a PI. No assumption is made in regard to the data distribution, behaviour, and patterns when developing intervals. A training method is proposed to link the confidence level (CL) concept of PIs to the intervals generated by IT2FLS models. The new PI-based training algorithm not only ensures that PIs constructed using IT2FLS models satisfy the CL requirements, but also reduces widths of PIs and generates practically informative PIs. Proper adjustment of parameters of IT2FLSs is performed through the minimization of a PI-based objective function. A metaheuristic method is applied for minimization of the non-linear non-differentiable cost function. Performance of the proposed method is examined for seven synthetic and real world benchmark case studies with homogenous and heterogeneous noise. The demonstrated results indicate that the proposed method is capable of generating high quality PIs. Comparative studies also show that the performance of the proposed method is equal to or better than traditional neural network-based methods for construction of PIs in more than 90% of cases. The superiority is more evident for the case of data with a heterogeneous noise.     

Type-2 Fuzzy Adaptive Output Feedback Saturation Control for Photovoltaic Grid-connected Power Systems

The adaptive interval type-2 (IT2) fuzzy output feedback control problem is studied for a single-phase photovoltaic grid-connected power system. The equivalent resistors of the inductors in the system are unknown and the part states are not available. Interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems (IT2FLSs) are utilized to approximate the uncertain nonlinear dynamics, and an IT2 fuzzy state observer is designed to estimate the unavailable states. By introducing a command filter method and using a backstepping control design technique, an IT2 fuzzy output feedback control scheme is investigated, in which the constraint conditions of pulse width modulation are ensured via mean-value theorem. It is proved that all the variables of the closed-loop photovoltaic system are uniformly ultimately bounded. The simulation and comparison results demonstrate the validity of the proposed control scheme.

     

A type-2 neural fuzzy system learned through type-1 fuzzy rules and its FPGA-based hardware implementation

This paper first proposes a type-2 neural fuzzy system (NFS) learned through its type-1 counterpart (T2NFS-T1) and then implements the built IT2NFS-T1 in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip. The antecedent part of each fuzzy rule in the T2NFS-T1 uses interval type-2 fuzzy sets, while the consequent part uses a Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) type with interval combination weights. The T2NFS-T1 uses a simplified type-reduction operation to reduce system training time and hardware implementation cost. Given a training data set, a TSK type-1 NFS is first learned through structure and parameter learning. The built type-1 fuzzy logic system (FLS) is then extended to a type-2 FLS, where highly overlapped type-1 fuzzy sets are merged into interval type-2 fuzzy sets to reduce the total number of fuzzy sets. Finally, the rule consequent and antecedent parameters in the T2NFS-T1 are tuned using a hybrid of the gradient descent and rule-ordered recursive least square (RLS) algorithms. Simulation results and comparisons with various type-1 and type-2 FLSs verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the T2NFS-T1 for system modeling and prediction problems. A new hardware circuit using both parallel-processing and pipeline techniques is proposed to implement the learned T2NFS-T1 in an FPGA chip. The T2NFS-T1 chip reduces the hardware implementation cost in comparison to other type-2 fuzzy chips.     

Type-2 hierarchical fuzzy system for high-dimensional data-based modeling with uncertainties

A type-2 hierarchical fuzzy system (T2HFS) is presented for the high-dimensional data-based modeling with uncertainties. Type-2 fuzzy logic system (T2FLS) is a powerful tool to handle uncertainties in complex processes. However, the operation of type-reduction has greatly increased the computational burden of T2FLSs. By integrating the T2FLS with hierarchical structure, a systematic design methodology of T2HFS is proposed to avoid the rule explosion and to simplify the computation complexity. The design methodology has included several procedures to establish the T2HFS. Firstly, the PCA-based method is developed to capture the prominent component from training data, and to determine the hierarchical structure of T2HFS. Furthermore, a novel clustering method is proposed to design the basic type-2 fuzzy logic unit (T2FLU) in uncertain environments. Finally, a hybrid-learning method is presented to fine-tune the parameters for the global optimization where the statistical and deterministic optimization methods are developed for the nominal and auxiliary performance, respectively. Simulation results have shown that the proposed T2HFS is very effective for the high-dimensional data-based modeling and control in uncertain environment.     

Design of interval type-2 fuzzy sliding-mode controller

In this paper, an interval type-2 fuzzy sliding-mode controller (IT2FSMC) is proposed for linear and nonlinear systems. The proposed IT2FSMC is a combination of the interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (IT2FLC) and the sliding-mode control (SMC) which inherits the benefits of these two methods. The objective of the controller is to allow the system to move to the sliding surface and remain in on it so as to ensure the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. The Lyapunov stability method is adopted to verify the stability of the interval type-2 fuzzy sliding-mode controller system. The design procedure of the IT2FSMC is explored in detail. A typical second order linear interval system with 50% parameter variations, an inverted pendulum with variation of pole characteristics, and a Duffing forced oscillation with uncertainty and disturbance are adopted to illustrate the validity of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the IT2FSMC achieves the best tracking performance in comparison with the type-1 Fuzzy logic controller (T1FLC), the IT2FLC, and the type-1 fuzzy sliding-mode controller (T1FSMC).     

Static Output Feedback Control for Interval Type‐2 T‐S Fuzzy Systems Based on Fuzzy Lyapunov Functions

This study aims to design an interval type‐2 (IT2) fuzzy static output feedback controller to stabilize the IT2 Takagi‐Sugeno (T‐S) fuzzy system. Conservative results may be obtained when a common quadratic Lyapunov function is utilized to investigate the stability of T‐S fuzzy systems. A fuzzy Lyapunov function is employed in this study to analyze the stability of the IT2 fuzzy closed‐loop system formed by the IT2 T‐S fuzzy model and the IT2 fuzzy static output feedback controller. Stability conditions in the form of linear matrix inequalities are derived. Several slack matrices are introduced to further reduce the conservativeness of stability analysis. The membership‐function shape‐dependent analysis approach is also employed to relax the stability results. The numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed conditions.     

Type-2 fuzzy sets applied to multivariable self-organizing fuzzy logic controllers for regulating anesthesia

In this paper, novel interval and general type-2 self-organizing fuzzy logic controllers (SOFLCs) are proposed for the automatic control of anesthesia during surgical procedures. The type-2 SOFLC is a hierarchical adaptive fuzzy controller able to generate and modify its rule-base in response to the controller's performance. The type-2 SOFLC uses type-2 fuzzy sets derived from real surgical data capturing patient variability in monitored physiological parameters during anesthetic sedation, which are used to define the footprint of uncertainty (FOU) of the type-2 fuzzy sets. Experimental simulations were carried out to evaluate the performance of the type-2 SOFLCs in their ability to control anesthetic delivery rates for maintaining desired physiological set points for anesthesia (muscle relaxation and blood pressure) under signal and patient noise. Results show that the type-2 SOFLCs can perform well and outperform previous type-1 SOFLC and comparative approaches for anesthesia control producing lower performance errors while using better defined rules in regulating anesthesia set points while handling the control uncertainties. The results are further supported by statistical analysis which also show that zSlices general type-2 SOFLCs are able to outperform interval type-2 SOFLC in terms of their steady state performance.     

Observer-based adaptive output-constrained control design of switched stochastic nonlinear systems with input saturation

In this article, the problem of adaptive fuzzy control for output-constrained switched stochastic nonlinear systems subject to input saturation is addressed. By employing the trigonometric function mapping method, the constrained systems are transformed into unconstrained ones, and the control goals of the original constrained systems are not affected. Meanwhile, an auxiliary system is established to deal with the issue of input saturation, and an observer is constructed to estimate the unmeasured states. Then, the unknown nonlinear functions in the system are approximated by the fuzzy logic systems (FLSs). Based on the backstepping technique and Lyapunov function method, an output feedback control strategy is designed, where the dynamic surface control technique is applied in the backstepping design process to overcome the issue of a large number of online calculations. The designed controller can guarantee that all the signals of the system satisfy bounded conditions, and the output can track given reference signals within a small error range. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.     

Type-1 and Type-2 effective Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models for decentralized control of multi-input-multi-output processes

Effective model is a novel tool for decentralized controller design to handle the interconnected interactions in a multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) process. In this paper, Type-1 and Type-2 effective Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models (ETSM) are investigated. By means of the loop pairing criterion, simple calculations are given to build Type-1/Type-2 ETSMs which are used to describe a group of non-interacting equivalent single-input-single-output (SISO) systems to represent an MIMO process, consequently the decentralized controller design can be converted to multiple independent single-loop controller designs, and enjoy the well-developed linear control algorithms. The main contributions of this paper are: i) Compared to the existing T-S fuzzy model based decentralized control methods using extra terms to characterize interactions, ETSM is a simple feasible alternative; ii) Compared to the existing effective model methods using linear transfer functions, ETSM can be carried out without requiring exact mathematical process functions, and lays a basis to develop robust controllers since fuzzy system is powerful to handle uncertainties; iii) Type-1 and Type-2 ETSMs are presented under a unified framework to provide objective comparisons. A nonlinear MIMO process is used to demonstrate the ETSMs’ superiority over the effective transfer function (ETF) counterparts as well as the evident advantage of Type-2 ETSMs in terms of robustness. A multi-evaporator refrigeration system is employed to validate the practicability of the proposed methods.     

Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Systems Made Simple

To date, because of the computational complexity of using a general type-2 fuzzy set (T2 FS) in a T2 fuzzy logic system (FLS), most people only use an interval T2 FS, the result being an interval T2 FLS (IT2 FLS). Unfortunately, there is a heavy educational burden even to using an IT2 FLS. This burden has to do with first having to learn general T2 FS mathematics, and then specializing it to an IT2 FSs. In retrospect, we believe that requiring a person to use T2 FS mathematics represents a barrier to the use of an IT2 FLS. In this paper, we demonstrate that it is unnecessary to take the route from general T2 FS to IT2 FS, and that all of the results that are needed to implement an IT2 FLS can be obtained using T1 FS mathematics. As such, this paper is a novel tutorial that makes an IT2 FLS much more accessible to all readers of this journal. We can now develop an IT2 FLS in a much more straightforward way     

Fault tolerant control based on neural network interval type-2 fuzzy sliding mode controller for octorotor UAV

In this paper, a robust controller for a six degrees of freedom (6 DOF) octorotor helicopter control is proposed in presence of actuator and sensor faults. Neural networks (NN), interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (IT2FLC) approach and sliding mode control (SMC) technique are used to design a controller, named fault tolerant neural network interval type-2 fuzzy sliding mode controller (FTNNIT2FSMC), for each subsystem of the octorotor helicopter. The proposed control scheme allows avoiding difficult modeling, attenuating the chattering effect of the SMC, reducing the number of rules for the fuzzy controller, and guaranteeing the stability and the robustness of the system. The simulation results show that the FTNNIT2FSMC can greatly alleviate the chattering effect, tracking well in presence of actuator and sensor faults.     

Reinforcement Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Controller Design by Online Rule Generation and Q-Value-Aided Ant Colony Optimization

This paper proposes a new reinforcement-learning method using online rule generation and Q-value-aided ant colony optimization (ORGQACO) for fuzzy controller design. The fuzzy controller is based on an interval type-2 fuzzy system (IT2FS). The antecedent part in the designed IT2FS uses interval type-2 fuzzy sets to improve controller robustness to noise. There are initially no fuzzy rules in the IT2FS. The ORGQACO concurrently designs both the structure and parameters of an IT2FS. We propose an online interval type-2 rule generation method for the evolution of system structure and flexible partitioning of the input space. Consequent part parameters in an IT2FS are designed using Q-values and the reinforcement local-global ant colony optimization algorithm. This algorithm selects the consequent part from a set of candidate actions according to ant pheromone trails and Q-values, both of which are updated using reinforcement signals. The ORGQACO design method is applied to the following three control problems: (1) truck-backing control; (2) magnetic-levitation control; and (3) chaotic-system control. The ORGQACO is compared with other reinforcement-learning methods to verify its efficiency and effectiveness. Comparisons with type-1 fuzzy systems verify the noise robustness property of using an IT2FS.     

Type-2 fuzzy sliding mode control without reaching phase for nonlinear system

A new sliding mode control (SMC) algorithm for the nth order nonlinear system suffering from parameters uncertainty and subjected to an external perturbation is proposed. The algorithm employs a time-varying switching plane. At the initial time t=t₀, the plane passes through the point determined by the system initial conditions in the error state space. Afterwards, the plane moves to the origin of the state space. Since the nonlinear system is sensible to the perturbations and uncertainties during the reaching phase, the elimination of such phase yields in a considerable amelioration of system robustness. Switching plane is chosen such that: (1) the reaching phase is eliminated, (2) the nonlinear system is insensitive to the external disturbance and the model uncertainty from the initial time (3) the convergence of the tracking error to zero. Furthermore, a Type-2 fuzzy system is used to approximate system dynamics (assumed to be unknown) and to construct the equivalent controller such that: (1) all signals of closed-loop system are uniformly ultimately bounded, (2) the problems related to adaptive fuzzy controllers like singularity and constraints on the control gain are resolved. To ensure the robustness of the overall closed-loop system, analytical demonstration using Lyapunov theorem is considered. Finally, a robot manipulator is considered as a real time system in order to confirm the efficiency of the proposed approach. The experimentation is done for both regulation and tracking control problems.     

A novel criterion for nonlinear time-delay systems using LMI fuzzy Lyapunov method

This study presents a kind of fuzzy robustness design for nonlinear time-delay systems based on the fuzzy Lyapunov method, which is defined in terms of fuzzy blending quadratic Lyapunov functions. The basic idea of the proposed approach is to construct a fuzzy controller for nonlinear dynamic systems with disturbances in which the delay-independent robust stability criterion is derived in terms of the fuzzy Lyapunov method. Based on the robustness design and parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme, the problems of modeling errors between nonlinear dynamic systems and Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy models are solved. Furthermore, the presented delay-independent condition is transformed into linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) so that the fuzzy state feedback gain and common solutions are numerically feasible with swarm intelligence algorithms. The proposed method is illustrated on a nonlinear inverted pendulum system and the simulation results show that the robustness controller cannot only stabilize the nonlinear inverted pendulum system, but has the robustness against external disturbance.     

Stability analysis and controller design of interval type-2 fuzzy systems with time delay

The type-2 fuzzy models can handle the system uncertainties directly based on the type-2 fuzzy sets. In this paper, the Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy model approach is extended to the stability analysis and controller design for interval type-2 (IT2) fuzzy systems with time-varying delay. Delay-dependent robust stability criteria are developed in terms of linear matrix inequalities by using the improvement technique of free-weighting matrices. Less conservative results are obtained by considering the information contained in the footprint of uncertainty. Finally, two simulation examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results. One is provided to show the merits of the proposed method, the other based on the continuous stirred tank reactor model is given to illustrate the design processes of IT2 fuzzy controller for a nonlinear system with parameter uncertainties.     

A Type-2 Self-Organizing Neural Fuzzy System and Its FPGA Implementation

This paper proposes a type-2 self-organizing neural fuzzy system (T2SONFS) and its hardware implementation. The antecedent parts in each T2SONFS fuzzy rule are interval type-2 fuzzy sets, and the consequent part is of Mamdani type. Using interval type-2 fuzzy sets in T2SONFS enables it to be more robust than type-1 fuzzy systems. T2SONFS learning consists of structure and parameter identification. For structure identification, an online clustering algorithm is proposed to generate rules automatically and flexibly distribute them in the input space. For parameter identification, a rule-ordered Kalman filter algorithm is proposed to tune the consequent-part parameters. The learned T2SONFS is hardware implemented, and implementation techniques are proposed to simplify the complex computation process of a type-2 fuzzy system. The T2SONFS is applied to nonlinear system identification and truck backing control problems with clean and noisy training data. Comparisons between type-1 and type-2 neural fuzzy systems verify the learning ability and robustness of the T2SONFS. The learned T2SONFS is hardware implemented in a field-programmable gate array chip to verify functionality of the designed circuits.