| Abstract: | Abstract It is possible that a better model for the behavior of a nerve cell may be provided by what might be called a fuzzy neuron, which is a generalization of the McCulloch-Pitts model. The concept of a fuzzy neuron employs some of the concepts and techniques of the theory of fuzzy sets which was introduced by Zadeh [2, 3] and applied to the theory of automaton by Wee and Fu [6], Tanaka et al. [7], Santo [8] and others. In effect, the introduction of fuzziness into the model of a neuron makes it better adapted to the study of the behavior of systems which are imprecisely defined by virtue of their high degree of complexity. Many of the biological systems, economic systems, urban systems and more generally, large-scale systems fall into this category. In the nearly three decades since its publication, the pioneering work of McCulloch and Pitts [1], has had a profound influence on the development of the theory of neural nets, in addition to stimulating much of the early work in automata theory and regular events. Although the McCulloch-Pitts model of a neuron has contributed a great deal to the understanding of the behavior of neural-like systems, it fails to reflect the fact that the behavior of even the simplest type of nerve cell exhibits not only randomness but, more importantly, a type of imprecision which is associated with the lack of sharp transition from the occurrence of an event to its non-occurrence. In this paper, some basic properties of fuzzy neural networks as well as their applications to the synthesis of fuzzy automata are investigated. It is shown that any n-state minimal fuzzy automaton can be realized by a network of m fuzzy neurons, where ┌log2 n┐ ? m ? 2n. Examples are given to illustrate the procedure. As an example of application, a realization of λ-fuzzy language recognizer using a fuzzy neural network is presented. The techniques described in this paper may be of use in the study of neural networks as well as in formal languages, pattern recognition, and learning. |
