Generalized fuzzy clustering method

Abstract

This paper presents a new hybrid fuzzy clustering method. In the proposed method, cluster prototypes are values that minimize the introduced generalized cost function. The proposed method can be considered as a generalization of fuzzy c–means (FCM) method as well as the fuzzy c–median (FCMed) clustering method. The generalization of the cluster cost function is made by applying the Lp norm. The values that minimize the proposed cost function have been chosen as the group prototypes. The weighted myriad is the special case of the group prototype, when the Lp norm is the L2 (Euclidean) norm. The cluster prototypes are the weighted meridians for the L1 norm. Artificial data set is used to demonstrate the performance of proposed method