Classifier Systems Based on Possibility Distributions: A Comparative Study

The main aim of this paper is three fold: a) to understand the working of a classifier system based on possibility distribution functions, b) to evaluate its performance against other superior methods such as fuzzy and non-fuzzy neural networks on real data, c) and finally to recommend changes for enhancing its performance. The paper explains how to construct a possibility based classifier system which is used with conventional error-estimation techniques such as cross-validation and bootstrapping. The results were obtained on a set of electronic nose data and this performance was compared with earlier published results on the same data using fuzzy and non-fuzzy neural networks. The results show that the possibility approach is superior to the non-fuzzy approach, however, further work needs to be done.