The POP learning algorithms: reducing work in identifying fuzzy rules.

A novel fuzzy neural network, the Pseudo Outer-Product based Fuzzy Neural Network (POPFNN), and its two fuzzy-rule-identification algorithms are proposed in this paper. They are the Pseudo Outer-Product (POP) learning and the Lazy Pseudo Outer-Product (LazyPOP) leaning algorithms. These two learning algorithms are used in POPFNN to identify relevant fuzzy rules. In contrast with other rule-learning algorithms, the proposed algorithms have many advantages, such as being fast, reliable, efficient, and easy to understand. POP learning is a simple one-pass learning algorithm. It essentially performs rule-selection. Hence, it suffers from the shortcoming of having to consider all the possible rules. The second algorithm, the LazyPOP learning algorithm, truly identifies the fuzzy rules which are relevant and does not use a rule-selection method whereby irrelevant fuzzy rules are eliminated from an initial rule set. In addition, it is able to adjust the structure of the fuzzy neural network. The proposed LazyPOP learning algorithm is able to delete invalid feature inputs according to the fuzzy rules that have been identified. Extensive experimental results and discussions are presented for a detailed analysis of the proposed algorithms.