Extension Principle

The extension principle is a basic concept of fuzzy set theory that provides a general procedure for extending crisp domains of mathematical expressions to fuzzy domains. This procedure generalizes a common point-to-point mapping of a fuction f(⋅) to a mapping between fuzzy sets. More specifically, suppose that f is a fuction from X to Y and A is a fuzzy set on X defined as

  A = μA(x1)/x1 + μA(x2)/x2 + ⋅⋅⋅ + μA(xn)/xn

Then the extension principle states that the image of fuzzy set A under the mapping f(⋅) can be expressed as a fuzzy set B,

  B = f(A) = μA(x1)/y1 + μA(x2)/y2 + ⋅⋅⋅ + μA(xn)/yn

where y_i = f( x_i ), i = 1, ..., n. In other words, the fuzzy set B can be defined through the values of f(⋅) in x₁, ..., x_n. If f(⋅) is a many-to-one mapping, then there exist x₁, x₂ ∈ X, x₁ ≠ x₂, such that f( x₁ ) = f( x₂ ) = y^∗ , y^∗ ∈ Y. In this case, the membership grade of B at y = y^∗ is the maximum of the membership grades of A at x = x₁ and x = x₂, since f(x) = y^∗ may result from either x = x₁ or x = x₂. More generally, we have

  μB(y) = maxx=f-1(y)μA(x)

Examples

Some examples are shown below:

Application of the extension principle to fuzzy set with discrete universes:

Let: 
    A = 0.1/-2 + 0.4/-1 + 0.8/0 + 0.9/1 + 0.3/2
and 
    f(x) = x2 - 3

Upon applying the extension principle, we have

  B = 0.1/1 + 0.4/-2 + 0.8/-3 + 0.9/-2 + 0.3/1
    = 0.8/-3 +  (0.4 ∨ 0.9)/-2 + (0.1 ∨ 0.3)/1
    = 0.8/-3 + 0.9/-2 + 0.3/1

where ∨ represents max.

Application of the extension principle to fuzzy sets with continuous universe

For a fuzzy set with a continuous universe of discourse X, an analogous procedure applies

Let: 
    μA = bell(x; 1.5, 2, 0.5)
and 
              (x -1)2 -1,  if x ≤ 0
           /
    f(a) = 
           \
              x,           if x ≤ 0 

Figure 2(a) is the plot of y = f(x); Figure 2(c) is μ_A(x), the MF of A. After employing the extension principle, we obtain a fuzzy set B; its MF is shown in Figure 2(b), where the plot of μ_B(y) is rotated 90 degrees for easy viewing. Since f(x) is a many-to-one mapping for x ∈ [-1, 2], the max operator is used to obtain the membership grades of b when y ∈ [0, 1]. This causes discontinuities of μ_B(y) and y = 0 and -1.

Now we consider a more general situation. Suppose that f is a mapping from a n-dimensional product space X₁ × ⋅⋅⋅ X_n to a single universe Y such that f( x₁, ..., x_n) = y, and there is a fuzzy set A_i in each X_i, i = 1, ..., n. Since each element in an input vector ( x₁, ..., x_n ) occurs simultaneously, this implies an AND operation. Therefore, the membership grade of fuzzy set B induced by the mapping f should be the minimum of the membership grades of the constituent fuzzy set A_i, i = 1, ..., n. With this understanding, we give a complete formal definition of the extension principle:

Fuzzy Relations

Binary fuzzy relations [4, 6] are fuzzy set in X × Y which map each element in X × Y to a membership grade between 0 and 1. In particular, unary fuzzy relations are fuzzy sets with one-dimensional MFs; binary fuzzy relations are fuzzy sets with two-dimensional MFs, and so on. Applications of fuzzy relations include areas such as fuzzy control and decision making. Here we restrict our attention to binary fuzzy relations; a generalization to n-ary relations is straightforward.

Binary Fuzzy Relation