The selection of the Dempster´s rule based on evidence trap problem in D-S theory

Dempster´s rule may not handle the conflicting belief structures in several situations. The Dempster´s combination rule and its alternatives have been under the microscope. This paper focus on the conflicting belief structure problem and comes up with an evidence trap problem. A method of determining whether to select the Dempster´s rule of combination or not when there is an evidence trap is proposed. The method deploys the conflict coefficient and the distance between belief structures as a two-dimensional measure with two thresholds settled. Numeric examples show the efficiency of the proposed method.