Towards Systematic Design of General Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Controllers: Analysis, Interpretation, and Tuning

This article aims to provide a new perspective on how the deployment of general type-2 (GT2) fuzzy sets affects the mapping of a class of fuzzy logic controllers (FLCs). It is shown that an α-plane represented a GT2-FLC is easily designed via baseline type-1 and interval type-2 FLCs and two design parameters (DPs). The DPs are the total number of α planes and the tuning parameter of the secondary membership function that are interpreted as sensitivity and shape DPs, respectively. We provide a clear understanding and interpretation of the sensitivity and shape DPs on controller performance through various comparative analyses. We present design approaches on how to tune the shape DP by providing a tradeoff between robustness and performance. We also propose two online scheduling mechanisms to tune the shape DP. We explore the effect of the sensitivity DP on the GT2-FLC and provide practical insights on how to tune the sensitivity DP. We present an algorithm for tuning the sensitivity DP that provides a compromise between computational time and sensitivity. We validate our analyses, interpretations, and design methods with experimental results conducted on a drone. We believe that this article provides clear explanations on the role of DPs on the performance, robustness, sensitivity, and computational time of GT2-FLCs.