Rule combination and fuzzy logical inference

The author investigates the use of local and global combinations of fuzzy rules. When used together with L.A. Zadeh's (1979) compositional rule of inference, fuzzy rule combination results in multiple rules being fired simultaneously. The use of combined rules improves the specificity of results, and also provides a mechanism for examining the consistency of a rule base. An efficient implementation scheme based on the chained inference of locally combined rules is proposed.>