Fuzzy neural networks: Theory and applications

Abstract

During recent years, significant advances have been made in two distinct technological areas: fuzzy logic and computational neural networks. The theory of fuzzy logic provides a mathematical framework to capture the uncertainties associated with human cognitive processes, such as thinking and reasoning. It also provides a mathematical morphology to emulate certain perceptual and linguistic attributes associated with human cognition. On the other hand, the computational neural network paradigms have evolved in the process of understanding the incredible learning and adaptive features of neuronal mechanisms inherent in certain biological species. Computational neural networks replicate, on a small scale, some of the computational operations observed in biological learning and adaptation. The integration of these two fields, fuzzy logic and neural networks, have given birth to an emerging technological field -- fuzzy neural networks. Fuzzy neural networks, have the potential to capture the benefits of these two fascinating fields, fuzzy logic and neural networks, into a single framework. The intent of this tutorial paper is to describe the basic notions of biological and computational neuronal morphologies, and to describe the principles and architectures of fuzzy neural networks. Towards this goal, we develop a fuzzy neural architecture based upon the notion of T-norm and T-conorm connectives. An error-based learning scheme is described for this neural structure.