Choosing membership functions of linguistic terms

The shapes of terms used in fuzzy systems have adopted several ‘conventions’. Terms are almost invariably normalised (having a maximum membership value of 1), convex (having a single maximum or plateau maxima) and distinct (being restricted in their degree of overlap: often expressed as some variation on the concept that all membership values at any point in the universe of discourse sum to 1 across that universe). The shape of these terms are generated by certain accepted membership functions: piecewise linear functions (with restrictions), Gaussians or Sigmoids are almost exclusively used. As such these constitute only a small subset of the total set of possible shapes of terms. These conventions are largely empirical or are justified by arguments based on what might loosely be called ‘fuzzy control principles’. The paper highlights a number of membership functions that developers of fuzzy systems outside the paradigm of fuzzy control may consider as alternatives. In particular, we highlight subsumed fuzzy sets, discuss the merits of non-convex fuzzy sets and present a medical application where sub-normal fuzzy sets have been used. These ideas are reinforced by examples.