AbstractManual construction of a rule base for a fuzzy system is a hard and time-consuming task that requires expert knowledge. To ameliorate that, researchers have developed some methods that are more based on training data than on expert knowledge to gradually identify the structure of rule bases. In this paper we propose a method based on bacterial foraging optimization algorithm (BFOA), which simulates the foraging behavior of “E.coli” bacterium, to tune Gaussian membership functions parameters of a TSK-fuzzy system rule base. The effectiveness of modified BFOA in such identifications is then revealed for designing a fuzzy control system, via a comparison with available methods

Bahrololoum, Abbas

Kamyab, Shima

Elsevier - Publisher Connector 

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183
1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the 4th International Conference of Cognitive Science
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.01.028
 
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
 
Procedia  
Social and 
Behavioral 
Sciences Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences  00 (2010) 000–000 
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
4th International Conference of Cognitive Science (ICCS 2011) 
 
Designing of rule base for a TSK- fuzzy system using bacterial 
foraging optimization algorithm (BFOA) 
 
Shima Kamyaba, Abbas Bahrololouma,* 
 
aComputer Department, Sahid Bahonar University, 22 Bahman Blvd, Kerman, Iran 
Abstract 
 
Manual construction of a rule base for a fuzzy system is a hard and time-consuming task that requires expert knowledge. To 
ameliorate that, researchers have developed some methods that are more based on training data than on expert knowledge to 
gradually identify the structure of rule bases. In this paper we propose a method based on bacterial foraging optimization 
algorithm (BFOA), which simulates the foraging behavior of “E.coli” bacterium, to tune Gaussian membership functions 
parameters of a TSK-fuzzy system rule base. The effectiveness of modified BFOA in such identifications is then revealed for 
designing a fuzzy control system, via a comparison with available methods. 
© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 
Keywords:Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm (BFOA); training data; fuzzy control; fuzzy rule learning 
 
1. Introduction  
 
Fuzzy systems are powerful tools which are applied in many applications such as automatic control, pattern 
recognition and decision making. Constructing a rule base for a fuzzy system is often difficult and time consuming 
and needs expert knowledge, which in turn make difficult to design a fuzzy system. To solve this problem, different 
solutions are proposed, which are based on the common methods in artificial intelligence such as evolutionary- 
algorithms – i.e., genetic algorithm-GA (Acosta & Todorovich, 2003; Papadakis & Theocharis, 2002), neural-
network-based approaches (Baruch, Lopez, Guzman, & Flores, 2008; Majhi & Panda, 2011) and heuristic methods 
(Juang & Lo, 2008;  Modares, Alfi, & Fateh, 2010; Lin, 2008; Zuo & Fan, 2006). Generally, the system 
identification process has two main steps:  
1- Structure identification- in this step we need a priori knowledge to identify a set of models which are presented 
with a parameter function:  
Y = f (u; θ)                                                                                                                                                    (1) 
Where Y is model output, u is input vector and θ is the parameter vector of the system. Appointment of this 
function depends on problem characteristics and is based on designer experience and system owner’s considerations. 
2- Parameter identification- in this second step the structure is known and all we need is to use optimization 
 
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 09133407438; fax:+0-000-000-0000  
E-mail address: a_bahrololoum@yahoo.com  
  lished by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the 4th International 
Conference of Cognitive Science Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
177Shima Kamyab and Abbas Bahrololoum / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183 Abb s Bahrololoum/ Pr cedia – Social and Beh vioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000 
methods to tune parameter vector so it describes a suitable system (Jang, Sun, & Mizutani, 1997).  
If there is no information about the target system, structure identification becomes to a difficult problem and we 
have to apply trial and error to identify the system. 
Fortunately, nowadays we know a lot about engineering systems and industrial processes. Then usually it is 
possible to extract a set of models as parameter function with the best description of the system. Therefore, the 
system identification process can reduce to parameter identification step. 
In parameter identification step, the goal is obtaining optimize parameters for the system so that the difference 
between system output and target output reaches to a minimum level. One of the methods to find the optimum value 
for parameters is to use heuristic algorithms which are derivative free methods and increase the speed to get to the 
suitable solutions. 
One of the powerful heuristic methods that are used in system identification problems is particle swarm 
optimization algorithm (PSO) (Nedjah & de Macedo Mourelle, 2006) which simulates the movement of birds or 
fishes to find food in a search space. In recent years many studies are carried out in which various versions of PSO 
are used to adjust fuzzy system parameters (several studies (Juang & Lo, 2008; Modares et al., 2010; Majhi & 
Panda, 2011). 
Bacterial foraging optimization algorithm (BFOA) is a new heuristic method which simulates the behaviour of a 
sort of bacterium in stomach called “E.coli”. Recently, some studies are done on this method, for example Alejandra 
Guzman, Delgado and De Carvalho (2009) used chemotactic behaviour of “E. coli”, to solve multi objective 
optimization problems. Kim, Abraham, and Cho (2007), combined BFOA and GA, to solve optimization problems. 
Tabatabaei and Vahidi (2011) used BFOA and fuzzy decision making to identify the optimum location and size for 
capacitors in a distributed radial system. And Hota, Barisal and Chakrabarti (2010), discussed a new algorithm using 
a modified version of BFOA to solve the economic and emission dispatch (EELD) problem, which is a nonlinear 
multi-objective optimization problem and is basically solved to generate optimal amount of generating power from 
the fossil fuel based generating units in the system by minimizing the fuel cost and emission level simultaneously. 
The approach utilizes the natural selection of global optimum bacterium having successful foraging strategies in the 
fitness function.  
BFO and PSO algorithms are similar in several cases like considering position for agents in the search space so 
that it can change toward the location of the food (i.e., the optimum solution), iteratively. In PSO algorithm, each 
particle has a velocity value which adjusts its step size toward the food depending on its fitness value. In BFOA 
bacteria can change their direction and move to another way. If we combine the characteristics of these two 
methods, due to more intelligent movement of population toward optimum solution, it is possible to find more 
accurate solutions. In Gollapudi, Pattnaik, Bajpai, Devi, and Bakwad (2011) combined BFOA and a PSO based 
method as VMBFO algorithm to reduce convergence time and reach to more accuracy in solving optimization 
problems. In this paper, we use a BFOA based method in which some of BFOA operators are replaced by PSO 
algorithm ones to tune TSK type fuzzy system parameters.  
The rest of paper is organized as follows: in section 2 the BFOA is described. Section 3 is about modelling the 
problem. In section 4 BFOA based algorithm is used to construct the rule base of a fuzzy controller system and the 
results of achieved fuzzy system via BFOA based method (that is called BSO) are shown in comparison with some 
available heuristic methods and finally section5 is the conclusion of using this method in comparison with PSO 
algorithm. 
2. Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm (BFOA) 
 
  BFOA is an algorithm that tries to simulate the foraging behavior of “E. coli” bacteria in solving optimization 
problems. It consists of four basic steps: 
1 - Chemotaxis: that simulates the movement of each bacterium using run and tumble. A bacterium can alternate 
between these two movements in search space. It is implemented by (Eq. 2) 
 
θ i (j + 1, k, l) = θ i (j, k, l) + C (i) (∆ (i)/Sqrt (∆T (i) ∆ (i))) 
 
(2) 
178  Shima Kamyab and Abbas Bahrololoum / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183 Abbas Bahrololoum/ Procedia – Social an  Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000  
Where θi, C(i), ∆ (i), j, k, l stand for position, step size, random direction, chemotactic index, reproduction index, 
elimination-dispersal index of the bacterium (i), respectively. 
2- Swarming: that simulates the indirect cell to cell signaling, among bacteria by which they inform each other of 
nutrient and noxious materials in the vicinity. It is modeled as (Jcc) in (Eq. 3). 
Jcc (θ, P (j, k, l)) = ∑si=1 Jcc (θ, θi (j, k, l)) = ∑si=1 [-dattractant exp (-wattractant∑m=1p (θm – θmi)2)] + 
∑si=1[hrepellant exp (-wrepellant ∑m=1p (θm – θmi)2)]                                                              
(3)
Where S, P, θ, d, w stand for swarm size, space dimension, a point in space, depth and width of either attractant 
or repellant material through which the bacteria communicate, respectively. And hrepellant, dattractant are different 
coefficients. 
3- Reproduction: that tries to simulate the reproduction via a bacterial health measure based on obtained food. 
But to avoid expansion in complexity, keeps the swarm size constant. 
4- Elimination and Dispersal: that tries to simulate the environmental constrains via a mutation probability on the 
bacteria.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
179Shima Kamyab and Abbas Bahrololoum / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183 Abbas Bahrololoum/ Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000 
  
Figure1. shows the BFOA flowchart: 
 
Where Nc, Nre, Ned stand for the maximum number of chemotactic, reproduction, and elimination-dispersal steps, 
respectively.
180  Shima Kamyab and Abbas Bahrololoum / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183 Abbas Bahrololoum/ Procedia – Social an  Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000  
Problem modeling 
 
Figure 2 shows a schematic diagram of system identification process, in which the input ui is given to the target 
system and the model. The difference between target system output and model output is used to update the 
parameter vector θ. 
 
             ui 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 2. System identification process 
 
In learning process of the system a set of ‘m’ input output training data pairs ((xi, yi), i= 1... m) is considered as u 
vector. 
Totally, system identification is not a one step process and needs to repeat structure and parameter identification 
stages iteratively to reach a suitable result. 
  
3-1. Fuzzy system to be used 
The applied TSK-fuzzy system has rules of the form shown in (Eq. 4). 
 
(4)  Ri: If x1(k) is Ai1 AND … AND xn(k) is Ain Then y(k) is ai          
Where k, X1(k) to Xn(k), Y(k), Aij, ai stand for time, input variables, output variable, a fuzzy set, and a crisp value, 
respectively. 
 
Membership functions are picked to be Gaussian and firing strength of each rule is as follows: 
 
 
 
(5) 
By having r Rules, the output of fuzzy system is calculated as a weighted average as follows: 
 
 
 
 (6) 
 
ŷi 
-
Identification techniques 
Target system to be 
identified 
Mathematical model 
f (u; ө)
yi 
Yi  -ŷi
181Shima Kamyab and Abbas Bahrololoum / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183
 Abbas Bahrololoum/ Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000 
3-2. Modeling bacteria population in BFOA based algorithm (BSO) 
    In a TSK type fuzzy system if there are n input variable and r rules, the position of a bacterium in the search space 
is represented by s vector as shown in Equation 7: 
 
s = [m11, σ11, …, m1n, σ1n, m2n, σ2n, …, mrn, σrn, a1, …, ar] (7) 
 
Where m and σ are the center and width of membership functions and a is the consequent value of a specified 
rule in the fuzzy system. The number of s vector instances will be equal to (2n + 1) × r  
To add the characteristics of PSO algorithm to BFOA we considered a velocity value for each bacterium in the 
search space. 
The population is initialized randomly. 
In elimination-dispersal stage of BFOA algorithm, we used a PSO based operator to mutate the position and 
velocity of bacteria as mentioned in Equation 8: 
 
Vidnew = w. Vidold + c1φ1(θg-bestd – θdold(i, j + 1, k)) 
 
θdnew(i, j + 1, k) = θdold(i, j + 1, k) + Vidnew                          
(8) 
 
Where Vid is the dth element of velocity vector of ith bacterium, θ is the position vector, j, k are chemotactic and 
reproduction indexes respectively, and w, c1, φ1 are PSO based coefficients.  
 
3. Simulation results 
 
In this section, to evaluate performance of our applied method, there is a comparison between BSO method and 
some known algorithms to system identification problem for a kind of fuzzy controller system called plant tracking 
control system [4]. 
In plant tracking control system the plant to be controlled is described as follows: 
 
y(k + 1) = (y(k)/(1 + y2(k))) + u3(k) (9) 
 
Where y(k) is in [-2, 2] and y(0) = 0 and u(k) is control input that is in [-1, 1]. 
The target system output equation is as follows: 
 
yd(k) = sin(πk/50) cos(πk/30)                       kЄ[1, 250] 
 
(10) 
The system to be modeled has two inputs and one output variables and their values in each iteration calculate 
through Eq. 9 and Eq. 10 in an on-line way. 
  
  
(11)  
  
Input 1 = yd(k + 1) 
input 2 = y(k) 
  
 
The Root Means Square Error (RMSE) function is used to calculate performance of achieved fuzzy systems. 
 
RMSE = Sqrt(∑k=0249(yd(k + 1) – y(k + 1))2/250) (12) 
 
And the fitness function will be as Equation 13:  
 
F = 1/(RMSE + ε) 
Where ε = 10-10 is used to avoid dividing by zero.      
(13) 
182  Shima Kamyab and Abbas Bahrololoum / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183
 Abbas Bahrololoum/ Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000  
 
The selected values for parameters of used algorithm are: 
 
P = 75, S = 40, Nc = 20, Ns = 10, Nre = 500, Ped = 0.05, C (i) = 0.1 for each bacterium. The number of rules for 
fuzzy system is chosen 15. The result of comparison between BSO algorithm and some other algorithms via average 
of 20 times launching is shown in figure3, in order to compare their performance: 
 
Figure 3. Compare learning control results 
 
Where TPSIA is a two phase swarm intelligence algorithm in which the initial values for phase two (PSO phase) 
are obtain through phase one (ACO phase) (Juang & Lo, 2008). Immune algorithm is an algorithm which simulates 
the behavior of B cells of immune mechanism in human body (Lin, 2008; Zuo & Fan, 2006). Figure 4 shows the 
control result of achieved fuzzy system for plant tracking control system, through BSO algorithm in comparison 
with PSO algorithm. 
 
 
 
 
Figure 4. Fuzzy control results for PSO and BSO algorithms 
183Shima Kamyab and Abbas Bahrololoum / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 32 (2012) 176 – 183 Abbas Bahrololoum/ Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000 
4. Conclusion  
 
Using heuristic methods for parameter identification step of system identification process turn it from a time-
consuming to a simple and fast task. Bacterial Foraging Optimization algorithm, as one of the heuristic methods, is 
similar to PSO algorithm used in several identification processes with desirable solutions. But BFOA adds special 
characteristics to mobile agents in the search space like swimming toward nutrient and tumble which cause them to 
move more exactly toward the nutrient. Hence, if a bacterium finds out that it is going away from the nutrient, it 
changes the direction toward places with more probability of nutrient existing. In this paper some of BFOA 
operators are replaced with PSO ones to add PSO advantages to BFOA, which led to achieving more desirable 
results in TSK-type control fuzzy system identification for plant tracking plant.  
 
Acknowledgment:  
Special thanks to Mr. Abdol-Hamid Bahrololoum for helping us to conduct this research. 
References 
Acosta, G., & Todorovich, E. (2003). Genetic algorithms and fuzzy control: A practical synergism for industrial applications. Journal of 
Computers in Industry, 52, 183–195.
Alejandra Guzman, M., Delgado, A., & De Carvalho, J. (2009). A novel multiobjective optimization algorithm based on bacterial chemotaxis. 
Journal of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 23, 292–301.
Baruch, I. S., Lopez, R. B., Guzman, J-L. O., & Flores, J. M. (2008). A fuzzy-neural multi-model for nonlinear systems identification and control. 
Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 159, 2650-2667. 
Gollapudi, S. V. R. S., Pattnaik, Sh. S., Bajpai, O. P., Devi, S., & Bakwad, K. M. (2011). Velocity Modulated Bacterial Foraging Optimization 
Technique (VMBFO). Applied Soft Computing, 11, 154–165.
Hota, P. K., Barisal, A. K., & Chakrabarti, R. (2010). Economic emission load dispatch through fuzzy based bacterial foraging algorithm.
International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems, 32, 794–803. 
Jang, R. J-S., Sun, C-T., & Mizutani, E. (1997). Neur- fuzzy and soft computing, a computational approach to learning and machine intelligence. 
USA: prentice-Hall. 
Juang, C-F., & Lo, C. (2008). Zero-order TSK-type fuzzy system learning using a two-phase swarm intelligence algorithm. Fuzzy Sets and 
Systems, 159, 2910-2926. 
Kim, D. H., Abraham, A., & Cho, J. H. (2007). A hybrid genetic algorithm and bacterial foraging approach for global optimization. Information
Sciences, 177, 3918–3937.
Lin, Ch-J. (2008). An efficient immune-based symbiotic particle swarm optimization learning algorithm for TSK-type neuro-fuzzy networks 
design. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 159, 2890-2909. 
Majhi, B., & Panda, G. (2011). Robust identification of nonlinear complex systems using low complexity ANN and particle swarm optimization 
technique. Expert Systems with Applications, 38, 321–333. 
Modares, H., Alfi, A., & Fateh, M-M. (2010). Parameter identification of chaotic dynamic systems through an improved particle swarm 
optimization. Expert Systems with Applications, 37, 3714–3720.
Nedjah, N., & de Macedo Mourelle, L. (2006). Swarm intelligent systems. Rio de Janeiro: Springer Inc. 
Papadakis, S. E., & Theocharis, J. B. (2002). A GA-based fuzzy modeling approach for generating TSK models. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 131, 
121-152.
Tabatabaei, S. M., & Vahidi, B. (2011). Bacterial foraging solution based fuzzy logic decision for optimal capacitor allocation in radial 
distribution system. Electric Power Systems Research, 81, 1045-1050. 
Zuo, X. Q., & Fan, Y. S. (2006). A chaos search immune algorithm with its application to neuro-fuzzy controller design. Chaos, Solitons and 
Fractals, 30, 94–109. 


Designing of rule base for a TSK- fuzzy system using bacterial foraging optimization algorithm (BFOA) 

file:///data/remote/core/dit/data/elsevier/pdf/5c8/aHR0cDovL2FwaS5lbHNldmllci5jb20vY29udGVudC9hcnRpY2xlL3BpaS9zMTg3NzA0MjgxMjAwMDI5OA==.pdf

Designing of rule base for a TSK- fuzzy system using bacterial foraging optimization algorithm (BFOA)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Elsevier - Publisher Connector

Elsevier - Publisher Connector