Real-world utility of non-singleton fuzzy logic systems: A case of environmental management

The potentials of non-singleton fuzzy logic systems (NSFLSs) in dealing with uncertainties are widely known. However, their utilities and possible challenges in real-world applications, particularly beyond fuzzy controls, are still not widely examined. This paper presents some user-centric design approaches in making NSFLSs usable in a real-world problem of environmental management. In previous work, a singleton FLS was developed based on an established environmental management framework. After further investigation of the users´ requirements, it was realized that the effective capture, representation and visualization of the system´s inputs and outputs are critical, particularly when there are uncertainties involved in data collection and decision-making processes. For addressing the new requirements, the system has been extended to a NSFLS, so it can make use of non-singleton fuzzification in handling uncertain (e.g., noisy) environmental data. Inspired by the user-centric design of this particular system extension, the contribution of this paper is the development of some practical methods to capture/represent input/output uncertainties in NSFLSs. Subject to further users evaluation, the explained methods have potential to be employed in many similar real-world applications, thus extending the NSFLSs applicability to a wider context than the present.