A note on the Gustafson-Kessel and adaptive fuzzy clustering algorithms

Abstract

In this letter, we show that the Gustafson-Kessel (G-K) algorithm (1979) and the original adaptive fuzzy clustering (AFC) algorithm can be thought of as special cases of a more general algorithm. Our analysis shows that the G-K algorithm is better suited for ellipsoidal clusters of equal volume, whereas the original AFC algorithm is better suited for linear clusters. We also discuss a new variation of these algorithms, which can be used to improve the results of the G-K and AFC algorithms in some cases.