Constructing a fuzzy rule-based system using the ILFN network and Genetic Algorithm

In this paper, a method for automatic construction of a fuzzy rule-based system from numerical data using the Incremental Learning Fuzzy Neural (ILFN) network and the Genetic Algorithm is presented. The ILFN network was developed for pattern classification applications. The ILFN network, which employed fuzzy sets and neural network theory, equips with a fast, one-pass, on-line, and incremental learning algorithm. After trained, the ILFN network stored numerical knowledge in hidden units, which can then be directly interpreted into if then rule bases. However, the rules extracted from the ILFN network are not in an optimized fuzzy linguistic form. In this paper, a knowledge base for fuzzy expert system is extracted from the hidden units of the ILFN classifier. A genetic algorithm is then invoked, in an iterative manner, to reduce number of rules and select only discriminate features from input patterns needed to provide a fuzzy rule-based system. Three computer simulations using a simulated 2-D 3-class data, the well-known Fisher's Iris data set, and the Wisconsin breast cancer data set were performed. The fuzzy rule-based system derived from the proposed method achieved 100% and 97.33% correct classification on the 75 patterns for training set and 75 patterns for test set, respectively. For the Wisconsin breast cancer data set, using 400 patterns for training and 299 patterns for testing, the derived fuzzy rule-based system achieved 99.5% and 98.33% correct classification on the training set and the test set, respectively.