Parametric representation of fuzzy numbers and application to fuzzy calculus

We present several models to obtain simple parametric representations of the fuzzy numbers or intervals, based on the use of piecewise monotonic functions of different forms. The representations have the advantage of allowing flexible and easy to control shapes of the fuzzy numbers (we use the standard a-cuts setting, but also the membership functions are obtained immediately) and can be used directly to obtain error-controlled-approximations of the fuzzy calculus in terms of a finite set of parameters. The general setting is the Hermite-type interpolation, where the values and the slopes of the monotonic interpolators are given by appropriate parameters and the overall errors of the fuzzy computations can be controlled within a prefixed tolerance by eventually augmenting the total number of pieces (and of the parameters) by which the results are obtained. The representations are designed to model the lower and the upper extremal values of each alpha-cut (compact) intervals of the fuzzy numbers and are able to produce almost any possible configuration (differentiable, continuous or with a finite number of discontinuity points) by using parametric monotonic functions of different types. We show applications in the standard fuzzy calculus and we stress the generality and the applicability of the proposed representation to a large class of problems, including the numerical solution of fuzzy differential equations, the fuzzy linear regression and the stochastic extensions of the fuzzy mathematics. The proposed model is called the Lower-Upper representation and we denote the associated fuzzy numbers or intervals as LU-fuzzy. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.