Self-organizing neural network as a fuzzy classifier

This paper describes a self-organizing artificial neural network, based on Kohonen’s model of self-organization, which is capable of handling fuzzy input and of providing fuzzy classification. Unlike conventional neural net models, this algorithm incorporates fuzzy set-theoretic concepts at various stages. The input vector consists of membership values for linguistic properties along with some contextual class membership information which is used during self-organization to permit efficient modeling of fuzzy (ambiguous) patterns. A new definition of gain factor for weight updating is proposed. An index of disorder involving mean square distance between the input and weight vectors is used to determine a measure of the ordering of the output space. This controls the number of sweeps required in the process. Incorporation of the concept of fuzzy partitioning allows natural self-organization of the input data, especially when they have ill-defined boundaries. The output of unknown test patterns is generated in terms of class membership values. Incorporation of fuzziness in input and output is seen to provide better performance as compared to the original Kohonen model and the hard version. The effectiveness of this algorithm is demonstrated on the speech recognition problem for various network array sizes, training sets and gain factors.