Combining conflicting evidence using the DEMATEL method

Dempster–Shafer evidence theory is widely used in the information fusion field for its effectivity in representing and handling uncertain information. However, applications of Dempster rule in combining multiple conflicting evidence often cause counterintuitive results. One of the existing researches on conflict is based on the similarity of evidence. However, due to the fact that computational complexity of the existing methods is large, it is difficult to meet the real-time requirements of systems. Therefore, new effective methods with acceptable expense should be explored. In this article, following the idea of modifying the source model of evidence, a new method based on DEMATEL is proposed to take the weight of each evidence into consideration. First, the total-relation matrix is determined by the similarity among evidence. Second, prominence and importance are calculated. Finally, the weighted average combination result can be obtained based on Dempster’s rule of combination. Numerical examples are used to demonstrate that the proposed model is efficient to both deals with conflicting evidence and reduce computational complexity.