Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276

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Expert Systems With Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

Evidence reasoning for temporal uncertain information based on

relative reliability evaluation
Cheng-li Fan a, Yafei Song a,∗, Lei Lei a, Xiaodan Wang a, Shi Bai b
a
Air and Missile Defense College, Air Force Engineering University, Xi’an, 710051, China
b
Zhixing FRP Reinforcement Nantong Co., Ltd., Nantong, 226010, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: As an important tool for information fusion, evidence theory has been widely applied in many areas.
Received 19 September 2017 Unlike spatial evidence combination, temporal evidence combination is sequential and dynamic, which
Revised 22 June 2018
calls for new temporal evidence combination rule. In this paper, temporal evidence is combined based
Accepted 23 June 2018
on relative reliability evaluation and evidence discounting. We first recall the method of evidence reli-
Available online 2 July 2018
ability evaluation based on intuitionistic fuzzy multiple criteria decision making (ERE-IFMCDM). Based
Keywords: on ERE-IFMCDM method, relative reliability factors of evidence sources in neighboring time nodes can
Dempster–Shafer evidence theory be obtained. Then, according to evidence discounting and Dempster’s combination rule, a method for
Intuitionistic fuzzy sets temporal evidence combination based on the relative reliability factor is developed. Numerical examples
Temporal information fusion and simulation demonstrate that the proposed method is time sensitive, which can reflect the dynamic
Reliability evaluation feature of temporal information fusion. Moreover, the proposed method can deal with conflict in tempo-
ral fusion much better, which can enhance the anti-interference performance of the fusion system. The
fusion framework proposed in this paper provides a dynamic perspective of the fusion of temporal un-
certain information. It is helpful for the structural design of intelligent fusion system based on multiple
temporal-spatial information.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Dempster–Shafer evidence theory, shorten as evidence theory
or D-S theory, has been proposed for decades (Dempster, 1967;
Shafer, 1976). In evidence theory, uncertain information is de-
scribed by series quantified belief measurements such as basic
probability assignment (BPA) function, belief function, plausibility
function, commonality function, etc. All of these functions have
specific physical meanings. And these functions are closely related
to each other. Compared with the strict axiomatic system in prob-
ability theory, the axiomatic system for evidence theory is much
looser. Unlike Bayesian reasoning, evidential reasoning does not
depend on the priori knowledge. Shortcomings of Bayesian reason-
ing can be partly overcome by evidence theory (Khaleghi, Khamis,
Karray F, & Razavi, 2013). Moreover, evidence theory can deal with
linguistic fuzzy concept. So evidence theory outperforms many
other methods in uncertain reasoning. In evidence theory, belief
can be assigned to all subsets of discernment frame. Information
provided by independent evidence sources can be combined by
Dempster’s rule (Dempster, 1967). By this way, uncertain infor-
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yafei_song@163.com (Y. Song).
mation can be fused effectively. So evidence theory has been ap-
plied widely in uncertain reasoning and uncertain information pro-
cessing. The application of evidence theory has been applied in
many areas such as pattern recognition (Liu, Pan, Dezert, Han, &
He 2018; Liu, Pan, Dezert, & Martin, 2018), expert systems (Deng &
Shi, 2003; Klein & Colot, 2010; Li, Zhou, Hu, Chang, Zhou, & Zhao
2017; Murphy, 20 0 0; Yang, Han, & Han, 2013; Zhou, Xu, Wen, &
Lv, 2012), decision making (Han, Han, Deng, & Yang, 2011; Wang &
Song, 2018), etc. In recent years, besides the physical meanings of
concepts in evidence theory, its relationship with other uncertainty
theories has also aroused the interest of researchers (Song, Wang,
Lei, & Xue, 2014).
However, if evidence bodies to be combined are highly conflict-
ing, counter-intuitive results may be obtained by classical Demp-
ster’s rule. This problem was firstly proposed by Zadeh (1986), and
is considered as a roadblock in the development of evidence the-
ory. Many researchers have been dedicated to solving this problem.
Lots of alternative combination rules have been proposed (Deng
& Shi, 2003; Han et al., 2011; Murphy, 20 0 0; Song, Wang, Wu,
Quan, & Huang, 2018; Zhou et al., 2012). All of these modified
combination rules can be divided into two classes, i.e., modifying
the combination rule (Denoeux, 2008; Florea, Jousselme, & Bosse,
2009; Lefevre, Colot, & Vannoorenberghe, 2002; Smarandache &

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2018.06.048
0957-4174/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276
Dezert, 2009; Smets, 2000; Yager, 1987) and modifying the evi-
dence sources (Deng, Shi, Zhu, & Liu, 2004; Haenni, 2005; Klein
& Colot, 2010; Murphy, 20 0 0; Yang et al., 2013). The difference of
these methods lies in their perspectives on the cause of counter-
intuitive combination results.
Taking a closer examination on existing evidence combination
rules, we can find that most of them mainly focus on the combi-
nation of spatial evidence sources, i.e., uncertain information col-
lected from multiple sources. For an expert system, aggregating all
information from multiple sources in a time sequence can enhance
its reliability in intelligent reasoning. So the fusion of temporal in-
formation collected sequentially is significant for the design of in-
telligent expert systems. But the combination of temporal uncer-
tain information is rarely investigated. Nevertheless, in a multi-
sensor system, the performance of sensors is usually unsteady and
may be influenced by interference information. So the results pro-
vided by sensors at a single time node are usually imprecise and
uncertain. In order to get more reliable fusion results, it is nec-
essary to fuse the temporal information which is sequentially ob-
tained from multi-sensors at multiple time nodes.
Thus, the fusion of uncertain information is essentially a se-
quential fusion process of temporal-spatial information based on
multi-sensor and multi-time-node. In the fusion of spatial infor-
mation, the information obtained from all sensors can be fused at
the same time, which is time-independent. But the temporal infor-
mation reaches the fusion system sequentially over time. They are
not collected at the same time. Moreover, considering the real-time
requirement on most information fusion systems, it is impossible
to commence the fusion after all timely information is obtained.
So the fusion of temporal information is explicitly sequential, dy-
namic and real-time. The historical fusion results are inherited and
updated over the time flow.
We have noted that some modified combination rules such
as Yager’s combination rule (Yager, 1987) and Denœux’s cautious
conjunctive rule (Denoeux, 2008) can deal with the conflict in-
formation better. The cautious conjunctive rule is also commuta-
tive and associative. It seems that they can be applied in tempo-
ral evidence combination. However, these combination rules are
designed to reduce the influence of conflicting evidence sources,
rather than treating the temporal fusion in a dynamic and com-
prehensive view. Dynamically, the current conflicting evidence may
convey much useful information when compared with subsequent
information, which is not considered in these methods. More-
over, the reliability of evidence sources is not taken into consid-
eration by the combination rules proposed by Yager (1987) and
Denœux (2008). So these combination rules may not be suitable
for temporal information fusion due to their static perspective.
Although temporal information fusion based on evidence the-
ory has been concerned by some researchers (Hong & Lynch, 1993;
Hong, Gao, & Li, 2011; Liu, Zhu, Li, & Zhuang, 2006; Wu, Cheng, Qu,
Pan, & Liu, 2012), a combination rule designed specifically for tem-
poral evidence combination is still an insistent demand. Hong and
Lynch (1993) studied the model of temporal-spatial uncertain in-
formation fusion based on evidence theory. Aiming at target iden-
tification fusion, three models were proposed to fuse temporal-
spatial information. They are recursive centralized fusion model,
recursive distributed fusion model without feedback, and recursive
distributed fusion model with feedback. In Hong and Lynch (1993),
characteristics and performance of these models were analyzed,
but they did not propose any specific evidence combination rules
for temporal information fusion. Hong et al. (2011) reinvesti-
gated and modified these three models. They proposed a mixed
temporal-spatial information fusion model, where classical Demp-
ster’s combination rule was applied in the fusion of temporal in-
formation. Based on the recursive centralized fusion model, other
researchers (Liu et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2012) have developed
265
temporal-spatial evidence combination rules for target identifica-
tion. But some of them directly used evidence combination rules
designed for spatial evidence combination to combine temporal ev-
idence, which cannot reflect the sequential characteristic of tem-
poral evidence and the influence of time. Other temporal evidence
combination rules were proposed by analyzing the relationship be-
tween all evidence bodies, where the temporal evidence sequence
is treated as spatial evidence sources collected at the same time.
The relationship between temporal evidence sources is not fully
exploited. Moreover, the conflict in temporal evidence sequence
cannot be well handled by these methods. Therefore, further in-
vestigation on temporal evidence combination is necessary to meet
the timely requirement of temporal information fusion. The con-
struction of a specific combination method for temporal evidence
is desirable to reflect the distinct characteristic of temporal infor-
mation fusion.
This paper aims to solve challenges in temporal evidence com-
bination and facilitate the design of intelligent expert systems
based on information fusion. From the research on evidence the-
ory, we can notice that the key of evidence combination is how to
deal with conflicting information. Since evidence reliability evalua-
tion is an important method for handling conflict, we will research
temporal evidence combination through evaluating the reliability
factor of evidence sequence.
With the development of intuitionistic fuzzy theory (Atanassov,
1986; Bustince & Burillo, 1996; Song, Wang, Lei, & Xue, 2015a;
Song, Wang, Quan, & Huang, 2017), its connection with other un-
certainty theories is attracting more and more attention. Consid-
ering the relationship between evidence theory and intuitionistic
fuzzy sets (Song et al., 2014), we will propose an evidence reliabil-
ity evaluation method in the framework of intuitionistic fuzzy sets.
Based on this evaluation method, the reliability of two neighbor-
ing BPAs in the evidence sequence will be evaluated. Then relative
reliability factors can be obtained. Shafer’s discounting rule will be
adopted to modify the original BPAs, where the relative reliabil-
ity factor is used as the discounting factor. Finally, the discounted
BPAs are combined by Dempster’s rule. Based on this method, we
also construct a framework for temporal-spatial information fusion.
It is proved that the influence of time on temporal evidence com-
bination is considered by the proposed method. Moreover, our pro-
posed dynamic combination method can deal with the conflict in
temporal evidence sequence. Relative reliability is first considered
in temporal information fusion, which complies with the dynamic
characteristic of temporal information fusion. This is a successful
attempt to combine temporal evidence sources in the framework
of intuitionistic fuzzy set and evidence discounting.
The main contribution of this paper can be summarized as fol-
lowing:
• The relationship between evidence theory and intuitionistic
fuzzy sets is explored to facilitate evidence combination.
• The reliability of BPAs are evaluated in the framework of intu-
itionistic fuzzy multiple criteria decision making.
• A possibility-based intuitionistic fuzzy value ranking method is
proposed and applied in evidence reliability evaluation.
• When only two evidence sources are available, relative relia-
bility evaluation is proposed. This is helpful for the fusion of
temporal information.
• The fusion of temporal uncertain information is investigated
from a dynamic perspective. It is demonstrated that our pro-
posed fusion framework is sensitive to the time factor in the
fusion process.
In other words, the proposed method provides an important
framework for the fusion of temporal information. Moreover, it can
be also extended to develop more effective combination rules with
the help of the breakthrough in evidence reliability evaluation.
266 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276
To facilitate our exposition, the rest of this paper is organized
as following. Some background knowledge on evidence theory and
intuitionistic fuzzy sets is recalled in Section 2. The relationship
between intuitionistic fuzzy sets and BPAs is also analyzed. An evi-
dence reliability evaluation method is proposed based on intuition-
istic fuzzy multiple criteria decision making model in Section 3.
This provides the basis of temporal evidence reliability evaluation.
We propose a method to evaluate the relative reliability factor in
Section 4. Temporal combination method based on relative relia-
bility factor is also proposed in this section. Numerical examples
and simulation are presented in Section 5 to show the perfor-
mance of our proposed combination rule. We conclude this paper
in Section 6.
2. Preliminaries
In this section, we will present some basic knowledge related to
evidence theory and intuitionistic fuzzy sets to facilitate the expo-
sition. The following three main points are included in this section:
(1) an interpretation of Dempster–Shafer evidence theory, (2) basic
concepts on intuitionistic fuzzy sets, and (3) a brief review of the
relationship between intuitionistic fuzzy sets and BPAs.
2.1. Dempster–Shafer evidence theory
In the mathematical model of evidence theory, we need to de-
termine the discernment framework firstly. Based on discernment
frame, the support degree of each set can be quantified. Then all
evidence sources are combined by Dempster’s rule. Discernment
frame is the basis of evidence modeling and evidence combination.
Propositions and sets are connected by discernment frame, which
also enhances the transformation from abstract logic concepts to
intuitive set concept. In evidence theory, all mutually exclusive re-
sults of a decision problem constitute a finite set  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,,
θ n }, called discernment frame. The following belief measurements
are significant in evidence theory.
Let  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n } be the frame of discernment. If a func-
tion m : 2 → [0, 1] satisfies the following conditions: (1)m(∅) = 0,

(2)∀A⊆,0 ≤ m(A) ≤ 1, and (3) m(A ) = 1, it is a basic probabil-
A⊆
ity assignment (BPA) function.
Basic probability assignment function is also called as belief
structure, basic belief assignment (BBA) function or mass function.
Since the BPA reflects the degree to which the evidence body sup-
ports each set, BPA and evidence body often corresponds to each
other. ∀A⊆,m(A) is called the basic probability mass (BPM) of A.
For a BPA m on the discernment frame  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n },
∀A⊆, if m(A) > 0, A is the focal element of m. If |A| = 1, m(A)
> 0, A refers to a singleton focal element. If |A| ≥ 2, m(A) > 0, it
is a composite focal element. All focal elements constitute the core
of m, denoted as C. We can say m is focusing on the core C. Partic-
ularly, if the focal elements of m are all singleton subsets of , m
degenerate into a Bayesian BPA, whose mathematical formulation
is identical to the probability distribution on .
Two important belief measures associated with a BPA m on
 = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n } are belief function and plausibility function. Be-
lief function is a map Bel : 2 → [0, 1], satisfying Bel(∅) = 0, ∀A⊆,
 ward (Daniel, 2005). Among them, the pignistic transformation is
A = ∅, and Bel (A ) = m(X ). Belief function Bel(A) reflects the
X⊆A
degree to which the evidence supports that A is true. Plausi-
bility function is a function P l : 2 → [0, 1], satisfying P l (A ) =
 Definition 3. (Smets & Kennes, 1994). For a BPA m(∅) = 0 on the
m(X ) = 1 − Bel (Ā ). The plausibility function Pl(A) can be re-
X∩A=∅
garded as the belief degree that A is not false.
The interval λ represents the confidence interval of mλ (A ) =
λ · m ( A ), A ⊂ 
{ . λ also describes the uncertainty about λ
λ · m(A ) + 1 − λ, A = 
∈ [0, 1]. Pl(A) − Bel(A) can be used to quantify the level of igno-
λ · m ( A ), A ⊂ 
rance about mλ (A ) = { . The difference be-
λ · m(A ) + 1 − λ, A = 
tween Bel(A) and  provides a measurement of uncertainty about
the level of belief in a decision.
Definition 1. (Shafer, 1976). If a BPA m on the discernment frame
is not fully reliable, and its reliability factor is λ,λ ∈ [0, 1], the BPA
can be modified by discounting rule. The discounted BPA can be
expressed as:

λ · m ( A ), A ⊂ 
mλ ( A ) = (1)
λ · m(A ) + 1 − λ, A = 
In the BPA mλ , the basic probability mass assigned to  in-
creases, while other focal elements are assigned less basic prob-
ability mass. We can note that the influence of unreliability in m
is transformed to the degree of ignorance in mλ . x indicates that
the evidence source is completely reliable, then the BPA will re-
main unchanged after discounting. If A, the evidence is fully unre-
liable, then the BPA will become m() = 1, which means that the
evidence is useless for decision-making.
In multi-source information system, multiple sources can pro-
vide BPAs m1 ,m2 ,, mp at the same time. One source can also
obtain BPA sequence mt1 , mt2 , · · · , mtr . The combination of multi-
ple BPAs can lead to a new BPA. This process is called evidence
updating.
Definition 2. (Dempster, 1967). Let m1 and m2 be two indepen-
dent BPAs on the discernment frame  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n }. The new
BPA generated by combining m1 and m2 is denoted as m = m1 m2 ,
shorten as m12 . Then ∀A⊆, we have:
 
1
1−k
m1 (B )m2 (C ), A = ∅
m 1 2 ( A ) = B∩C=A (2)
0, A = ∅
where

k= m1 (B )m2 (C ) (3)
B∩C=∅
is the conflict degree between m1 and m2 . k = 1 indicates that m1
and m2 are completely contradictory. In the case of k = 1, m1 and
m2 cannot be combined by Dempster’s combination rule.
Dempster’s rule can be extended to combine more than two
evidence sources. Its commutativity and associativity provide con-
venience for the combination of multiple evidence sources. When
combining more than two evidence sources, we can combine them
one by one, or combine them in parallel.
Basic probability assignment function, belief function and plau-
sibility function can be used to quantify belief degree from differ-
ent perspectives. They can also be applied separately or simulta-
neously to make a decision. We can also transform them to the
distribution on discernment frame for a sound decision. Some re-
searchers have proposed decision rules based on quantified belief
functions. However, because of the existence of composite focal el-
ements, these rules cannot propose precise decision. Decision re-
sult with much uncertainty is with little help for the final deci-
sion. So it is necessary to transform BPAs to probabilities. Based
on such sense, many transformation methods have been put for-
widely applied. The pignistic transformation maps a BPA m to the
so called pignistic probability function. It is defined as following.
discernment frame  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n }, ∀A⊆, its pignistic proba-
bility is defined as:
 |A ∩ B| m(B )
Bet Pm (A ) = (4)
|B| 1 − m ( ∅ )
B ⊆
 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276
Particularly, given m(∅) = 0 and θ ∈ , we have:
 1
m (B )
Bet Pm ({θ } ) =
|B| 1 − m ( ∅ )
θ ∈B
2.2. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets
In classical sets, given an element x ∈ X = {x1 ,x2 ,, xn } and a
set A⊆X, then the relationship between x and A is x ∈ A or x∈A. In
other words, the membership degree of an element x belonging to
A is 0 or 1. This kind of two-valued logic is the foundation of mod-
ern mathematics. By extending the range of membership function
to the interval [0, 1], Zadeh (1965) proposed the concept of fuzzy
set.
Definition 4. (Zadeh, 1965). Let X = {x1 ,x2 ,, xn } be the universe
of discourse. A fuzzy set A on X is defined as:
A = { x, μA (x )|x ∈ X }
where, μA (x): X → [0, 1] is membership function, representing the
degree to which x belongs to A.
All fuzzy sets in the universe X can be expressed by FSs(X). In
fuzzy set A, vA (x) = 1 − μA (x) is the non-membership degree of x.
In the framework of fuzzy sets, the relationship between element
and fuzzy set is determined merely by membership degree. Higher
membership degree μA (x) indicates greater degree to which x be-
longs to A. When μA (x) ∈ {0, 1}, the fuzzy set A degrades into
a classical set, which is called as crisp set in this paper. In such
sense, fuzzy sets can be considered as the extension of classical
sets, and classical sets are special fuzzy sets.
For a better description on uncertain information, the concept
of intuitionistic fuzzy set was proposed by Atanassov (1986).
Definition 5. (Atanassov, 1986). Let X = {x1 ,x2 ,, xn } be the uni-
verse of discourse. An intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) A over X is de-
fined as:
A = { x, μA (x ), vA (x )|x ∈ X }
where μA (x): X → [0, 1] and vA (x): X → [0, 1] are the membership
function and non-membership function of x, respectively. μA (x)
and vA (x) satisfy the following condition:
μA ( x ) + v A ( x ) ≤ 1
In intuitionistic fuzzy set, the condition of μA (x) + vA (x) ≤ 1
leads to another parameter, i.e., hesitation degree π A (x). The hesi-
tation degree π A (x) of x can be defined as:
πA ( x ) = 1 − μ A ( x ) − v A ( x )
For convenience, we designate all intuitionistic fuzzy sets in X
as IFSs(X). Intuitionistic fuzzy set in the discourse universe X = {x}
can be denoted as μA (x),vA (x) or μA ,vA  in short. A = μA ,vA  is
also used to express an intuitionistic fuzzy value (IFV).
It is noteworthy that besides Definition 5, there are other pos-
sible representations of IFSs proposed in literature. It has been
proved that intuitionistic fuzzy sets are equivalent to vague sets
(Bustince & Burillo, 1996). We can also use an interval representa-
tion  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n } of intuitionistic fuzzy set M in  instead
of pair θ i (Hong & Kim, 1999). This approach is equivalent to the
interpretation of interval valued fuzzy sets, where Bel(θ i ) and θ i
∈ M represent the lower bound and upper bounds of member-
ship degree, respectively. Obviously, Bel (θ̄i ) is a valid interval, since
1 − Pl(θ i ) always holds for θ i . This indicates the equivalence rela-
tion between intuitionistic fuzzy set and interval valued fuzzy set.
We have used the interval [Bel(A), Pl(A)] to express the belief in-
terval of a proposition in evidence theory. This is similar to the
267
interval representation of intuitionistic fuzzy sets. So we can ana-
lyze the relationship between intuitionistic fuzzy sets and evidence
(5) theory based on this similarity relation.
For an intuitionistic fuzzy set A ∈ IFSs(X), if π A (x) = 0, we have
vA (x) = 1 − μA (x), then the IFS A reduces to Zadeh’s fuzzy set. So
fuzzy sets and classical sets can be viewed as special intuitionistic
fuzzy sets. Consequently, both of crisp sets and fuzzy sets can be
express in a unified form in the framework of intuitionistic fuzzy
sets.
Let crisp set A be the nonempty subset of the universe
X = {x1 ,x2 ,, xn }, i.e., A⊆X and A = ∅. Then A can be expressed
as an intuitionistic fuzzy set A˜ = {< x, μA˜ (x ), vA˜ (x ) > |x ∈ X }. For A˜ ,
if x ∈ A, we have μA˜ (x ) = 1, vA˜ (x ) = 0; if x∈A, we have μA˜ (x ) =
0,vA˜ (x ) = 1.
For example, in the universe of discourse X = {x1 ,x2 ,x3 ,x4 }, sub-
sets A = {x1 ,x2 } and B = {x1 ,x2 ,x3 } can be expressed by of intuition-
istic fuzzy sets A˜ and B˜, respectively:
(6) A˜ = { x1 , 1, 0, x2 , 1, 0, x3 , 0, 1, x4 , 0, 1},
B˜ = { x1 , 1, 0, x2 , 1, 0, x3 , 1, 0, x4 , 0, 1}.
The unified form of crisp sets, fuzzy sets and intuitionistic fuzzy
sets illustrates the flexibility of intuitionistic fuzzy sets in portray-
ing uncertain information. This enables us to model all kinds of
uncertainty in the framework of intuitionistic fuzzy set.
2.3. The relationship between IFS and BPA
Recently, more and more attention has been focused on the re-
lationship between intuitionistic fuzzy sets and evidence theory.
Li, Yang, and Yang (2004) tried to analyze evidence theory from
the view of vague set. They considered evidence theory as a spe-
cial vague set. Since vague sets and intuitionistic fuzzy set are
equivalent, evidence theory can be also regarded as special intu-
itionistic fuzzy set. In Dymova and Sevastjanov (2010; 2012), con-
cepts in intuitionistic fuzzy sets are interpreted in the framework
(7) of evidence theory. Ranking method of intuitionistic fuzzy val-
ues and decision rule are also proposed based on evidence theory
(Dymova & Sevastjanov 2010; 2012). Yager (2014) proposed an in-
tuitionistic view of the Dempster–Shafer belief structure. Xing and
Liu (2009) presented the method of determining membership and
(8) non-membership function in intuitionistic fuzzy sets by defining
generalized belief function and plausibility function. Next, we will
analyze the further relationship between BPAs and IFSs.
In evidence theory, the concepts of plausibility and belief are
used to define the upper and lower probability bounds of the im-
precise probability of any subset A in the discernment frame . As
(9)
mentioned in Section 2, Bel (A) is the lower probability, denoted
as P− (A), and the plausibility is the upper probability, denoted as
P+ (A). Thus here, the probability P(A) lies in an interval, i.e., P(A)
∈ [Bel(A), Pl(A)]. Apparently, [Bel(A), Pl(A)] is a sub-interval of the
unit interval [0, 1].
A similar situation in fuzzy set theory is type two fuzzy set
(Mendel & Bob, 2002). In this environment, imprecise membership
grades associated with a fuzzy set are expressed as interval val-
ues, which is also called interval-value fuzzy set. In this case, if
F is an interval-valued fuzzy subset of the space X, then F(x), the
membership degree of the element x belonging to F is an interval
F(x) = [FL (x), FU (x)].
Another related formulation for imprecise membership grades
of a fuzzy set F was introduced by Atanassov (1986), where intu-
itionistic membership grades were presented. For an intuitionistic
fuzzy set F defined in X, the membership of x in F can also be re-
garded as the degree of support for membership, denoted as FY (x).
The non-membership can be considered as the degree of support
268 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276
against membership, denoted as FN (x). In such sense, the expres-
sion μF (x),vF (x) is identical to FY (x),FN (x), which can be referred
as an intuitionistic statement about the membership of x in F.
The relationship between these two representations of impre-
cise fuzzy membership grades has been investigated (Cornelis,
Atanassov, & Kerre, 20 03; Deschrijver & Kerre, 20 03). It is pointed
out that interval-valued fuzzy sets and intuitionistic fuzzy sets
are equivalent to each other. Particularly, the interval-valued
membership grade [FL (x), FU (x)] is identical to the intuitionistic
membership grade pair FY (x),FN (x), such that FY (x )= FL (x) and
FN (x) = 1 − FU (x).
The analogy between the imprecise interval-valued member-
ship grade of a fuzzy set F(x) ∈ [FL (x),FU (x)], the intuitionistic mem-
bership grade pair FY (x),FN (x), and the imprecise interval-valued
probability of the belief structure P(A) ∈ [Bel(A), Pl(A)] inspires us
to consider an intuitionistic representation of the interval associ-
ated with the probability of the subset A. Following this analogy,
we get an intuitionistic representation of the imprecise value asso-
ciated with the probability of A as Bel(A), 1 − Pl(A).
Specifically, in terms of set theory, the discernment frame in
evidence theory corresponds to the discourse universe in intu-
itionistic fuzzy sets. We can consider a BPA m in the discernment
frame  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n } as an intuitionistic fuzzy set M over the
discourse universe  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n }. Then, for θ i ∈ , Bel(θ i )
represents the membership degree of θ i ∈ M, while Bel (θ̄i ), i.e.,
1 − Pl(θ i ), can be considered as the non-membership degree of θ i
with respect to M. In such way, focal elements of BPA m can be
simplified as singleton focal elements with intuitionistic fuzzy be-
lief degree < Bel(θ i ),1 − Pl(θ i ) > . Moreover, intuitionistic fuzzy be-
lief degree < Bel(θ i ),1 − Pl(θ i ) > represents the degree to which the
object θ i matching the true solution of a decision problem. For ex-
ample, in the application of target recognition, < Bel(θ i ),1 − Pl(θ i )
> can be considered as the matching degree between θ i and the
real identification of target.
On the other hand, an IFS A = <x, μA (x),vA (x) > in dis-
course universe X = {x} can be regarded as the answer of ques-
tion “Does x belong to A? ” . In this problem, the discern-
ment frame is  = {Yes, No}. According to definitions of mem-
bership function and non-membership function, we can get:
m({Yes}) = μA ,m({No}) = vA ,m() = π A . So A = <x, μA (x),vA (x) > cor-
responds to a BPA as:

m({Yes} ) = μA
m({No} ) = vA (10)
m() = πA
Obviously, this transformation can be extended to intuitionistic
fuzzy sets in any discourse universe. Hence, we can analyze intu-
itionistic fuzzy operations and measurements based on evidence
theory. We must note that the transformation from BPAs to intu-
itionistic fuzzy sets will cause certain information loss. Moreover,
the relationship between BPAs and intuitionistic fuzzy sets is not
in one to one correspondence.
3. A new method for evaluating evidence reliability
In order to reduce the influence of unreliable information on
the information fusion result, we need to evaluate the reliabil-
ity of evidence sources before fusing them. This is also an effec-
tive way to deal with conflicts among evidence sources. Recently,
a lot of work has been done on the evaluation of evidence reli-
ability (Elouedi, Mellouli, & Smets, 2004; Fu, Jia, Yang, & Zhuang,
2012; Guo, Shi, & Deng, 2006; Yang, Jia, & Fu, 2009). When prior
knowledge is available, evidence reliability can be assessed based
on sample training and optimization algorithm. This kind of relia-
bility is called as static reliability or absolute reliability.
However, in most of applications as target recognition, there is
little information available to provide criteria for the assessment of
evidence reliability. Moreover, the working environment of sensors
may change, which will affect the performance of sensors. So the
evaluation of evidence reliability is usually uncertain. In the infor-
mation fusion system based on evidence theory, we need to eval-
uate evidence theory based on the dynamic outputs of sensors. In
this paper, we call it as dynamic reliability evaluation.
Many methods have been proposed to evaluate the dynamic re-
liability of evidence based on the principle of majority. In the ma-
jority principle, if one evidence body is supported by others, it can
be assigned high reliability (Guo et al., 2006). Most existing dy-
namic reliability evaluation methods are constructed by defining
different measurements of conflict and evidence distance to de-
script the similarity between evidence bodies. Since the measure-
ment of evidence conflict is still an open problem, different evi-
dence conflict measurements may lead to different evaluation re-
sults. We can also note that in the situation of two evidence bodies
are given, their reliability factors are all 1 according to above men-
tioned methods. This result is independent to the details of BPA. If
these two evidence bodies are highly conflicting, we cannot deter-
mine which one is unreliable. So the principle of majority is not
suitable for this situation, which is common in temporal evidence
combination.
In temporal evidence combination, we need to evaluate the re-
liability factors of historical fusion result and new collected infor-
mation based on their relationship. Unlike dynamic reliability eval-
uated based on majority principle and static (absolute) reliability
assessed with the help of training data, the reliability for coupled
temporal evidence is called as relative reliability. So it is important
to seek an effective method for relative reliability evaluation.
To achieve a comprehensive and objective evaluation on the dy-
namic reliability of evidence, we have proposed a new method for
evidence reliability evaluation based on intuitionistic fuzzy multi-
ple criteria decision making model (Wang, Zhu, Song, & Lei, 2016).
The implementation process of this method (Wang et al., 2016)
shows its potential in relative reliability evaluation. For the sake
of discussion, we will recall this method in this section.
3.1. Ranking IFVs based on possibility
Definition 6. (Nakahara, 1998). Given two interval values
α = [aL ,aU ] and β = [bL ,bU ], satisfying aL ≤ aU , and bL ≤ bU ,
then the possibility to which α is not less than β , denoted as
P(α ≥ β ) , can be defined by:
  
aU − bL
P(α ≥β ) = min 1, max ,0 (11)
(a − aL ) + (bU − bL )
U
When aL = aU = a and bL = bU = b hold simultaneously,
(aU − aL ) + (bU − bL ) = 0, Eq. (11) is undefined. In such case, α and
β degrade to precise real numbers, we have a > b⇒P(α ≥ β ) = 1,a
< b⇒P(α ≥ β ) = 0,a = b⇒P(α ≥ β ) = 0.5.
For interval values α = [aL ,aU ] and β = [bL ,bU ], P(α ≥ β ) satisfies
the following properties:
(1) 0 ≤ P(α ≥ β ) ≤ 1;
(2) P(α ≥ α ) = 0.5;
(3) P(α ≥ β ) = 1⇔aL ≥ bU ;
(4) P(α ≥ β ) + P(β ≥ α ) = 1.
We have known that intuitionistic fuzzy values A = μA ,vA  and
B = μB ,vB  can be expressed by interval values A = [μA ,1 − vA ] and
B = [μB ,1 − vB ], respectively. So intuitionistic fuzzy values A and B
can also be ranked based on possibility.
 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276 269

Definition 7. Two intuitionistic fuzzy values are given as 3.2. Evidence reliability evaluation based on IFMCDM
A = μA ,vA  and B = μB ,vB . When π A + π B = 0, the possibility of
A ≥ B, shorten as P(A ≥ B) is defined as: Assume the set of all alternatives is A = {A1 ,A2 ,, Am }.

 1 − v − μ  X = {x1 ,x2 ,, xn } denotes the set of all criteria. The evaluation
A B of alternative Ai under criterion xj is an intuitionistic fuzzy value
P(A≥B ) = min 1, max ,0 (12)
πA + πB μij ,vij , i = 1, 2, , m, j = 1, 2, , n. μij ,vij  can be also regarded
as the degree to which Ai matches the ideal alternative with re-
If π A + π B = 0, A and B are precise real numbers. We
spect to criterion xj . Then the intuitionistic fuzzy multiple criteria
can get the following relations: μA > μB ⇒P(A ≥ B) = 1,μA <
decision making (IFMCDM) model can be expressed by a decision
μB ⇒P(A ≥ B) = 0,μA = μB ⇒P(A ≥ B) = 0.5.
matrix based on alternative set A and criteria set X:
For two intuitionistic fuzzy values A = μA ,vA  and B = μB ,vB ,
we can get the following properties of P(A ≥ B) :  
F = μi j , vi j m×n
(1) 0 ≤ P(A ≥ B) ≤ 1; x1 x2 ··· xn
⎛ ⎞
(2) P(A ≥ A) = 0.5; A1 μ11 , v11  μ12 , v12  ··· μ1 n , v 1 n 
(3) P ( A ≥ B ) = 1 ⇔ μA ≥ 1 − v B ; ⎜ μ21 , v21  μ22 , v22  ··· μ2n , v2n  ⎟ (16)
= A2 ⎜ ⎟
(4) P(A ≥ B) + P(B ≥ A) = 1. .. .. .. ..
.
⎝ . . .
⎠
It is noteworthy that we can get P(A ≥ B) = 1⇒μA ≥ 1 − vB ac- Am μm 1 , v m 1  μm 2 , v m 2  ··· μmn , vmn 
cording to property (3). Considering 1 − vA ≥ μA and 1 − vB ≥ μB ,
we can get 1 − vA ≥ μA ≥ 1 − vB ≥ μB . Then it follows that μA As introduced earlier, a BPA m in the discernment frame
≥ μB ,vA ≤ vB , i.e., P(A ≥ B) = 1⇒μA ≥ μB ,vA ≤ vB . But its inverse  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n } can be transformed to intuitionistic fuzzy set.
proposition does not hold. The intuitionistic fuzzy value < Bel(θ i ),1 − Pl(θ i ) > can be consid-
Suppose N intuitionistic fuzzy values A1 ,A2 ,, AN are expressed ered as the support degree on θ i . Take the application of target
by Ai = μAi , vAi ,i = 1, 2, , N, then we can rank these intuitionis- identification fusion system based on evidence theory for exam-
tic fuzzy values according to Definition 7. This process can be pro- ple, each sensor provides the target’s identification in the form of
posed as following: BPA. If each sensor reflects one property of the target, in the BPA
(1) Calculate the possibility of Ai ≥ Aj : m provided by sensor Sk , < Bel(θ i ),1 − Pl(θ i ) > can be regarded as
the degree to which θ i matches the real identification of the target
  
1 − v A i − μA j with respect to the criterion Sk . Based above analysis, the combina-
P(Ai ≥A j ) = min 1, max ,0 , i, j = 1, 2, · · · , N tion of multiple evidence sources can be transformed to the model
πA i + πA j
of intuitionistic fuzzy multiple criteria decision making.
(13) Let  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ p } be the discernment frame. BPAs
to be combined are m1 ,m2 ,, mq . Suij = <μj (θ i ),vj (θ i ) >
For clarity, we let Pi j = P(Ai ≥A j ) .
is the supporting degree of θ i assigned by mj , where
(2) Construct the comparison matrix of all intuitionistic fuzzy μj (Ai ) = Belj (Ai ),vj (Ai ) = 1 − Plj (Ai ),i = 1, 2, , p,j = 1, 2, , q.
values: Then, the combination of m1 ,m2 ,, mq can be transformed to
⎡ ⎤ the following intuitionistic fuzzy multiple criteria decision making
P11 P12 ··· P1N
⎢ P21 P22 ··· P2N ⎥ model.
P=⎢ . .. .. ⎥ (14)  
⎣ .. . .
⎦ F = μ j (θi ), v j (θi ) p×q
PN1 PN2 ··· PNN
⎛ m1 m2 · · · mq ⎞
Obviously, for matrix P, we have: ∀i, j ∈ {1, 2, , N}, 0 ≤ Pij ≤ θ1 Su11 Su12 · · · Su1q
1, Pij + Pji = 1, Pii = 0.5. = θ2 ⎜Su21
⎜ .
Su22 · · · Su2q ⎟
(3) Sum the elements in each row of matrix P: .. ⎝ .. .. .. ⎟⎠
. . .
N θp Su p1 Su p2 · · · Su pq
Pi = Pi j (15)
j=1
⎛ m1 m2 ··· mq ⎞
(4) Since Pi reflects the possibility to which Ai is not less than θ1 μ1 (θ1 ), v1 (θ1 ) μ2 (θ1 ), v2 (θ1 ) ··· μq (θ1 ), vq (θ1 )
other elements, we can get Pi ≥ Pj ⇒Ai ≥ Aj . So we can rank = θ2 ⎜ μ1 (θ2 ), v1 (θ2 ) μ2 (θ2 ), v2 (θ2 ) ··· μq (θ2 ), vq (θ2 )⎟
A1 ,A2 ,, An based on the ranking order of Pi . .. ⎜⎝ .
.
.
.
.
.
⎟
⎠
The following example will be employed to demonstrate the . . . .
implementation of this ranking method. θ p μ1 (θ p ), v1 (θ p ) μ2 (θ p ), v2 (θ p ) · · · μq (θ p ), vq (θ p )
(17)
Example 1. Three intuitionistic fuzzy values are given as: A1 = 0.6,
0.3, A2 = 0.45, 0.2, A3 = 0.5, 0.25. Therefore, the problem of evidence combination has been trans-
formed to the assessment of alternatives under multiple criteria.
The comparison matrix of A1 , A2 and A3 is: Accordingly, dynamic reliability of each evidence body is corre-
  sponding to the weight of each criterion. Thus, we can use the
0.50 0.56 0.57
P= 0.44 0.50 0.50 method for determining criteria weights to evaluate the dynamic
0.43 0.50 0.50 reliability of evidence sources.
Although many methods have been developed for deriving cri-
The summation of each row is: terion weights (Wang et al., 2016), lots of them are based on or-
P1 = 0.50 + 0.56 + 0.57 = 1.63, P2 = 0.44 + 0.50 + 0.50 = 1.44, dered weighted averaging operation and nonlinear optimization
P3 = 0.43 + 0.50 + 0.50 = 1.43. model (Wang & Zhang, 2013). Some of them need prior knowledge
Since P1 > P2 > P3 , the ranking order of A1 , A2 , A3 is A1 > A2 > to provide the ideal solution. Apparently, these methods are not
A3 . suitable for the evaluation of evidence reliability, which is imple-
270 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276

mented without any prior knowledge. So we will evaluate evidence is the ideal weighting vector. Since the eigenvector is not unique,
reliability based on self-assessment. w need to be normalized as:
In the model of multiple criteria decision making, each alter-
q
native is assessed under each criterion. We can suppose that each w = w/ wj (23)
alternative is an “Economic Person”, whose outstanding feature is j=1

pursuing the maximum profit. So each alternative will assign the

greatest weight to the criterion from which it receives the maxi- According to the corresponding relation between evidence dy-
mum support degree. For alternative Ai , its assessment result with namic reliability and criterion weighting vector, we can get the dy-
respect to criterion xj is < μij ,vij > . If < μik ,vik > =max { < μij ,vij namic reliability factor of evidence. In the evaluation of evidence
> }, xk will be assigned to the maximum weight. But this will bring reliability, the reliability factor of the most reliable one is usually
another problem, i.e., each alternative assigns all weight to the cri- assigned as 1. So the normalized dynamic reliability factor can be
terion that supports it in the greatest degree. For alternative Ai , it expressed by:
may assign the weight of xk as 1, and the weights of other criteria
are all 0. This will cause much information loss, which is not good wE = w/ max {w j } (24)
for decision making. When we respect the priority of the criterion j=1,2,··· ,q

xk , we should also make a full use of the assessment results pro-

vided by other criteria. So we can determine the criterion weight Above mentioned method is called evidence reliability evalua-
by the ranking method of intuitionistic fuzzy values based possibil- tion based on intuitionistic fuzzy multiple criteria decision making
ity, and then evaluate the dynamic reliability of evidence sources. (ERE-IFMCDM).
Let < μij ,vij > be the assessment result of alternative Ai under
criterion xj , i = 1, 2, , p, j = 1, 2, , q. For assessment results
< μij ,vij > and < μik ,vik > obtained from criteria xj and xk , the
possibility to which < μij ,vij > is not less than < μik ,vik > can be
4. Temporal evidence combination based on relative reliability
denoted by P (i ) . Then we have:
(x j ≥xk )
   In temporal evidence combination, evidence bodies are col-
(i ) 1 − vi j − μik lected sequentially as time flow. For clarity, the latest time node
P(x ≥x ) = min 1, max ,0 (18)
j k πi j + πik k is denoted by tk , and its previous time node k − 1 is written
as tk − 1 . The evidence bodies obtained at tk and tk − 1 are mk and
The comparison matrix P(i) for q intuitionistic fuzzy values can
mk − 1 , respectively. In temporal evidence combination, mk − 1 rep-
be obtained as:
resents the accumulative fusion result of all time nodes before tk .
⎛ ⎞
P((xi )≥x P((xi )≥x ··· P((xi )≥x
1 1) 1 2) 1 q)
⎜P((xi)≥x ) P((xi2)≥x ) ··· P((xi )≥x ) ⎟
⎜ 2 1 2 q ⎟
P (i ) = ⎜ . .. ⎟
2
.. (19)
⎝ .. . . ⎠ 4.1. Relative reliability evaluation
P((xi )≥x1) P((xqi )≥x ) ··· P((xi )≥x )
q 2 q q
As mentioned in Section 3, evidence reliability evaluation meth-
In matrix P(i) , the sum of all elements in its kth row can be
ods based on majority principle are unable to evaluate the reliabil-
considered as the possibility of xk proceeding other criteria. So we
ity factors of mk and mk − 1 . When only two evidence bodies are
can get:
available, their reliability factors are assigned 1 by these methods.
q
Pk(i ) = P (i ) , k = 1, 2, · · · , q (20) We cannot discount original BPAs if their reliability factors are both
m=1 km 1. It is noted that our proposed ERE-IFMCDM method has nothing
Then we can rank < μij ,vij > according to Pk(i ) . to do with majority principle. It is suitable for evidence reliability
Considering the assumption of economic person, we know that evaluation when there are only two evidence bodies. So reliability
the criterion corresponding to the best assessment should be as- factors of mk and mk − 1 can be evaluated based on ERE-IFMCDM
signed to the greatest weight. So the weight of xj assigned by Ai method. Then we can analyze their contribution to the fusion re-
can be expressed by: sult at current time node.
Let  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,, θ n } be the discernment frame. According to
Pj(i ) the ERE-IFMCDM method proposed in previous section, we can
w(ji ) = q (21)
m=1 m
P (i ) evaluate the reliability of evidence bodies obtained at two neigh-
boring time nodes. The evaluation process is implemented as fol-
Finally, the weight vector assigned by Ai can be obtained as: lowing:
 T
w(i ) = w1(i ) , w2(i ) , · · · , wq(i ) (22)
(1) Transform mk − 1 and mk to the support degree of each singleton
Since all criteria weights are derived by each alternative based subset of , denoted by Su1 (θ i ) and Su2 (θ i ), respectively, i = 1,
on its assessment result under every criterion, this method is 2, , n. Let Bel1 and Bel2 denote belief functions corresponding
called as self-assessment. However, we can note that the weight- to mk − 1 and mk , Pl1 and Pl2 denote the plausibility functions
ing vectors obtained from different alternatives are different. So we related to mk − 1 and mk . Then, ∀θ ∈ , its support degree can
need to determine the ideal weighting vector. Here we can borrow be expressed by:
the ideal of group decision making. Weighting vector w(i) provided
by alternative Ai can be considered as the decision made by ex-  
pert. We can minimize that the sum of the angle between the ideal Su j (θ ) = Bel j (θ ), 1 − P l j (θ ) , j = 1, 2 (25)
weighting vector and all w(i) to get the ideal weighting vector. The
eigenvalue method can be applied to get the solution. Constructing (2) Construct the intuitionistic fuzzy multiple decision making
matrix W = (w(1) ,w(2) ,, w(p) ), we can get the eigenvector w cor- model based on the support degree corresponding to mk − 1 and
responding to the maximum positive eigenvalue of WWT . Then w mk . The intuitionistic fuzzy multiple criteria decision making
 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276 271

(IF-MCDM) model is: m(k-1): the

accumulative Environment
⎛ mk−1 mk⎞ fusion result at at time node k
θ1 S u 1 ( θ1 ) S u 2 ( θ1 )
  time node k-1
F= μ j (θi ), v j (θi ) n×2 = θ2 ⎜Su1 (θ2 )
⎜ .
Su2 (θ2 )⎟
⎟
.. ⎝ .. .. ⎠
. .
θn S u 1 ( θn ) S u 2 ( θn ) RRF is r1 Sensor Sensor
…
Sensor
mk−1 mk 1 2 N
⎛ ⎞
θ1 Bel1 (θ1 ), 1 − P l1 (θ1 ) Bel2 (θ1 ), 1 − P l2 (θ1 )
= θ2 ⎜
⎜
Bel1 (θ2 ), 1 − P l1 (θ2 ) Bel2 (θ1 ), 1 − P l2 (θ1 )⎟
⎟
.. ⎝ .. .. ⎠ mkr1−1 Spatial
. . .
θn Bel1 (θn ), 1 − P l1 (θn ) Bel2 (θn ), 1 − P l2 (θn ) Combination

(26) m(k): spatial combination

(3) According to the ranking method of intuitionistic fuzzy values result at time node k
RRF is r2
based on possibility, calculate the possibility to which Su1 (θ i ) is
greater than Su2 (θ i ) with respect to θ i (i = 1, 2, , n):
   mkr2−1
P l1 (θi ) − Bel2 (θi ) Temporal-spatial
P((Siu) ≥Su ) = min 1, max ,0
1 2 P l1 (θi ) + P l2 (θi ) − Bel1 (θi ) − Bel2 (θi ) combination result at time
node k
(27)
Fig. 1. The model of temporal-spatial evidence combination based on TEC-RRF.
(4) Construct the comparison matrix between Su1 (θ i ) and Su2 (θ i )
(i = 1, 2, , n):
   
(i )
P((Siu) ≥Su P((Siu) ≥Su 0.5 P((Siu) ≥Su r1 can be regarded as the reliability factor of mk − 1 against mk .
1) 1) 1)
P = 1 2
= 2
(28) Similarity, r2 is reliability factor of mk against mk − 1 . So this
P (i )
(Su1 ≥Su2 )
P (i )
(Su2 ≥Su2 )
P (i )
(Su1 ≥Su2 )
0.5
evaluation process is considered as relative reliability evalua-
(5) Sum each row of P(i) . We can get weighting factors of mk − 1 and tion (RRE). r1 and r2 are named as the relative reliability factor
mk assigned by θ i : (RRF).

2 (i )
Pj1 0.5 + P((Siu) ≥Su
β1(i) = 2
j=1 2)
(i ) 2 (i )
= 1
4.2. Evidence discounting based on relative reliability
j=1 Pj1 + j=1 Pj2 0.5 + P(Su1 ≥Su2 ) + 0.5 + P((Siu)2 ≥Su1 )
(i )

(29) Given the relative reliability factor of mk − 1 and mk , we can dis-

count them based on Shafer’s discounting rule. mk − 1 and mk can
be discounted as:
2 (i ) 
Pj2 0.5 + P((Siu) ≥Su r1 · mk−1 (A ), A ⊂ 
(i ) j=1 1)
β2 = 2 2 = 2
mrk1−1 (A ) = (36)
(i )
Pj1 + (i )
Pj2 0.5 + P((Siu)1 ≥Su2 ) + 0.5 + P((Siu)2 ≥Su1 ) r1 · mk−1 (A ) + 1 − r1 , A = 
j=1 j=1

(30) 
r2 · mk ( A ), A ⊂ 
(6) Considering P (i ) + P (i ) = 1, the weighting vector ob- mrk2 (A ) = (37)
(Su1 ≥Su2 ) (Su2 ≥Su1 ) r2 · mk ( A ) + 1 − r2 , A = 
tained from θ i is:
 T Then we can combine the discounted evidence bodies by
0.5 + P((Siu) ≥Su 0.5 + P((Siu) ≥Su
(i ) 2) 1) Dempster’s combination rule. This method is named as temporal
β = 1
, 2
(31)
2 2 evidence combination based on relative reliability factor (TEC-RRF).
Based on TEC-RRF, all temporal evidence bodies can be sequentially
(7) Construct matrix W = (β(1) ,β(2) ,, β(n) ). The Perron-Frobenius combined.
vector (the eigenvector associated to the maximal positive Motivated by the recursive centralized fusion model for
eigenvalue) of WWT can be used as the weighting vector of temporal-spatial information (Hong & Lynch, 1993), we can con-
mαk−1
and mk , denoted by β = (β 1 ,β 2 )T . Then β satisfies: struct a recursive combination model for temporal-spatial evidence
  sources based on TEC-RRF. This model is demonstrated in Fig. 1,
β W W T = λmax · W W T (32) where the dashed line represents evidence discounting and the
dot-dash line represents evidence combination based on Demp-
(8) To keep each entry of β positive, β should be normalized by:
ster’s combination rule. Temporal-spatial information obtained by
 T
β = β /(β1 + β2 ) = β  1 , β  2 (33) multi-sensor can be fused based on this model.

(9) Generally, for mk − 1 and mk , we consider the evidence body

with greater reliability factor as fully reliable. So the reliability 5. Numerical examples and simulation
factors of mk − 1 and mk :
In this section, numerical examples and experimental simula-
r1 = β1 / max{β1 , β2 } (34)
tion will be employed to analyze the performance of temporal evi-
dence combination based on relative reliability factor. All examples
r2 = β2 / max{β1 , β2 } (35) and simulation are carried out in decision level.
272 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276
5.1. Numerical examples
Example 2. In a target identification fusion system based on evi-
dence theory, the discernment frame is  = {θ 1 ,θ 2 ,θ 3 }. The accu-
mulative recognition result obtained at time node t1 = 10s is cor-
responding to BPA m1 . At current time node t2 = 12s, the latest
recognition result is expressed by BPA m2 . m1 and m2 are ex-
pressed as following.
m 1 ( { θ1 } ) = 0 . 6 , m 1 ( { θ2 } ) = 0 . 1 , m 1 ( { θ3 } ) = 0 . 3
m 2 ( { θ1 } ) = 0 , m 2 ( { θ2 } ) = 0 . 8 , m 2 ( { θ3 } ) = 0 . 2 .
Relative reliability factors of m1 and m2 can be obtained as:
r1 = 1, r2 = 0.645.
According to the relative reliability factor, original BPA can be
discounted as follows:
mr11 ({θ1 } ) = 0.6, mr11 ({θ2 } ) = 0.1, mr11 ({θ3 } ) = 0.3, mr11 () = 0
mr22 ({θ1 } ) = 0, mc22 ({θ2 } ) = 0.516, mc22 ({θ3 } )
= 0.129, mc22 () = 0.355.
r r
Then we can combine m11 and m22 by Dempster’s combination
rule. The accumulative fusion result at t2 is:
m12 ({θ1 } ) = 0.478, m12 ({θ2 } ) = 0.196, m12 ({θ3 } )
= 0.326, m12 () = 0.
We can notice that the final fusion result supports {θ 1 } in the
greatest degree, which is consistent with m1 . If we directly use
Dempster’s combination rule to combine m1 and m2 , we will get
m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0. Then the BPM focused on {θ 1 } will be kept as 0 for-
ever, even if other BPAs supporting {θ 1 } are obtained later. The fu-
sion system is stuck with the problem of “veto-by-one-vote”, which
is counter-intuitive.
If the real-time reliability factor is employed for the tem-
poral combination (Song, Wang, Lei, & Xing, 2015), we can
get m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0, m12 ({θ 2 }) = 0.71, m12 ({θ 3 }) = 0.29. In spite of
m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0, the supporting degree on {θ 1 } will climb up with
the addition of more BPAs. In other words, the problem of “veto-
by-one-vote” can be avoided. However, if t2 is the last time node
and the system is disturbed seriously at t2 , temporal combination
based on real-time reliability factor will get a wrong result. This
may lead to decision failure. Moreover, in the method proposed in
Song et al. (2015), the real rime reliability factors are determined
by the position in time flow, but they are independent of the dis-
tribution of each BPA. Hence, much useful information is discarded
in the fusion process. We can find that conflicts between BPAs can
be better handled when relative reliability factor of temporal evi-
dence body is taken into consideration. So TEC-RRF method is good
for making a sounder decision.
Next, more temporal evidence bodies will be considered to an-
alyze the anti-interference ability of TEC-RRF method.
Example 3. On the basis of Example 2, we assume that m3 is the
BPA corresponding to the identification information obtained at
t3 = 15s. To illustrate the performance of TEC-RRF, two cases m3a
and m3b are considered. Two BPAs are given as:
(1) m3a ({θ 1 }) = 0.5, m3a ({θ 2 }) = 0.3, m3a ({θ 3 }) = 0.2;
(2) m3b ({θ 1 }) = 0.1, m3b ({θ 2 }) = 0.75, m3b ({θ 3 }) = 0.15.
According to TEC-RRF method, three BPAs obtained at three
time nodes can be combined. Temporal combination results for
two cases are listed in Table 1, where r12 represents the relative
reliability factor of m12 .
From Table 1, we can note that the final fusion results obtained
in two cases are distinctly different. In the first case, the final re-
sult supports {θ 1 } in the greatest degree. We can find that m3a
and m1 are similar in such case. They both prefer to supporting
{θ 1 }. The information obtained at t2 can be interpreted as inter-
ference on the system, which leads to wrong recognition result. So
in the temporal fusion result at t2 , the supporting degree on {θ 1 }
decreases. At t3 , the system recovers from abnormal state. With
the addition of m3a , the basic belief assigned to {θ 1 } climbs up in
the temporal combination result at t3 . So the target is identified as
{θ 1 } in the final decision.
For the second case, both of m3b and m2 support {θ 2 }. The BPA
obtained at t1 indicates that this recognition result is unreliable.
The target recognition system becomes more reliable with time
flow. So the information proposed later is more accuracy. Since the
information obtained at the first time node is discounted, its influ-
ence on the final fusion result can be reduced. We note that {θ 2 }
is assigned the most support degree by m3b and m2 , so {θ 2 } gets
the most basic probability mass in the final fusion result of second
case.
This example illustrates that the TEC-RRF method is sensitive to
the change of BPA order. It can well handle the conflict informa-
tion in the temporal fusion system, which can enhance the anti-
interference ability of identification fusion system.
In order to make a comparison with Dempster’s combination
rule and TEC-RTRF method proposed in Song et al. (2015), we
present the temporal combination results based on these two
methods in Table 2.
In the first case, from Table 2 we can note when Dempster’s
rule is applied, the combination result at t2 does not support {θ 1 }.
Since evidence reliability is not taken into consideration, the sys-
tem cannot recover from the abnormal state caused by the inter-
ference at t2 . It can be found that in the temporal fusion result at
t3 , the BPM assigned to {θ 1 } is still 0, although m3a supports {θ 1 }
by the greatest degree. If we use TEC-RTRF method to combine m1
and m2 , we can also get m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0. That is because only real-
time reliability factor is considered. The RTRF of m2 at t2 is 1, so
m2 is unchanged after discounting. With the addition of m3a , m12
is discounted at t3 , which can reduce its influence on the combi-
nation result. Hence, the BPM assigned to {θ 1 } increases by 0.35 in
the temporal combination result at t3 . This indicates that the sys-
tem can recover from the abnormal state, but the recovery rate is
slow.
When m3b participates the fusion, it is regarded that the infor-
mation gained at the first time mode has great deviation. We can
see that both of Dempster’s rule and TEC-RTRF method can obtain
right fusion result. However, these combination processes are risky.
They cannot enable the system to recover from abnormal state or
only provide a slow recovery speed when the system is disturbed
later.
Comparing with Dempster’s rule and TEC-RTRF, we can find
that the TEC-RRF method can greatly enhance the anti-interference
ability of fusion system. TEC-RRF method has the highest relia-
bility. Moreover, it is resistant to the interference occurred both
at the earlier time node and in the process of integration. Since
Dempster’s rule and TEC-RTEF method have limited ability of anti-
interference, they are not suitable for temporal evidence com-
bination. Compared with Dempster’s rule, our proposed method
may bring much computation burden in the fusion process due to
the reliability evaluation in each time node. However, the trade-
off between additional computation burden and system robust-
ness is worthy and significant thanks to the surge of computation
ability.
 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276 273

Table 1
Combination results obtained by TEC-RRF for two cases.

m3 RRF Discounted BPA from m12 Discounted BPA from m3 a /m3 b Final fusion results

m3 a ({θ 1 }) = 0.5 r12 = 1 mr1212 ({θ 1 }) = 0.478 mr33aa ({θ 1 }) = 0.325 m123 a ({θ 1 }) = 0.551
m3 a ({θ 2 }) = 0.3 r3 a = 0.6499 mr1212 ({ θ 2})=0.196 mr33aa ({ θ 2})=0.195 m123 a ({θ 2 }) = 0.182
m3 a ({θ 3 }) = 0.2 mr1212 ({ θ 3})=0.326 mr33aa ({ θ 3})=0.130 m123 a ({θ 3 }) = 0.267
m3 a () = 0 mr1212 ()=0 mr33aa ()=0.350 m123 a () = 0
m3 b ({θ 1 }) = 0.1 mr1212 ({θ 1 }) = 0.311 m33bb ({θ 1 }) = 0.1 m123 b ({θ 1 }) = 0.130
r
r12 = 0.6499
m3 b ({θ 2 }) = 0.75 m123 b ({θ 2 }) = 0.704
r
mr1212 ({ θ 2})=0.127 m33bb ({ θ 2})=0.75
m3 b ({θ 3 }) = 0.15 m123 b ({θ 3 }) = 0.166
r
r3 b = 1 mr1212 ({ θ 3})=0.212 m33bb ({ θ 3})=0.15
m3 b () = 0 m123 b () = 0
r
mr1212 ()=0.350 m33bb ()=0

Table 2
Combination results obtained by Dempster’s rule and TEC-RTRF for two cases (λ = 0.1 for TEC-RTRF).

Dempster’s rule TEC-RTRF method

m3 Fusion result at t2 Fusion result at t3 Fusion result at t2 Fusion result at t3

m3 a ({θ 1 }) = 0.5 m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0 m13 a ({θ 1 }) = 0 m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0 m13 a ({θ 1 }) = 0.35
m3 a ({θ 2 }) = 0.3 m12 ({θ 2 }) = 0.57 m13 a ({θ 2 }) = 0.67 m12 ({θ 2 }) = 0.71 m13 a ({θ 2 }) = 0.44
m3 a ({θ 3 }) = 0.2 m12 ({θ 3 }) = 0.43 m13 a ({θ 3 }) = 0.33 m12 ({θ 3 }) = 0.29 m13 a ({θ 3 }) = 0.21
m3 a () = 0
m3 b ({θ 1 }) = 0.1 m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0 m13 b ({θ 1 }) = 0 m12 ({θ 1 }) = 0 m13 b ({θ 1 }) = 0.05
m3 b ({θ 2 }) = 0.75 m12 ({θ 2 }) = 0.57 m13 b ({θ 2 }) = 0.87 m12 ({θ 2 }) = 0.71 m13 b ({θ 2 }) = 0.83
m3 b ({θ 3 }) = 0.15 m12 ({θ 3 }) = 0.43 m13 b ({θ 3 }) = 0.13 m12 ({θ 3 }) = 0.29 m13 b ({θ 3 }) = 0.12
m3 b () = 0

Table 3 Table 4
Recognition results of each sensor at each time node. Spatial evidence combination results at each time node.

Time node BPM S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 Time Dempster’s rule EC–CF method

node m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 }) m({θ 3 }) m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 }) m({θ 3 })
t1 = 5s m({θ 1 }) 0.250 0.300 0.221 0.333 0.629 0.305
m({θ 2 }) 0.299 0.256 0.350 0.273 0.352 0.212 t1 = 5s 0.5529 0.2850 0.1621 0.2322 0.1299 0.6379
m({θ 3 }) 0.451 0.444 0.429 0.394 0.019 0.483 t2 = 8s 0.9789 0.0077 0.0134 0.9509 0.0189 0.0302
t2 = 8s m({θ 1 }) 0.440 0.628 0.435 0.348 0.642 0.530 t3 = 16s 0.3216 0.0829 0.5955 0.4425 0.0993 0.4582
m({θ 2 }) 0.323 0.136 0.325 0.262 0.252 0.118 t4 = 23s 0.1715 0.0703 0.7582 0.1951 0.0920 0.7129
m({θ 3 }) 0.237 0.236 0.240 0.390 0.106 0.352 t5 = 26s 0.2365 0.1737 0.5898 0.2546 0.1956 0.5498
t3 = 16s m({θ 1 }) 0.251 0.454 0.269 0.460 0.623 0.124
m({θ 2 }) 0.276 0.236 0.336 0.215 0.142 0.420
m({θ 3 }) 0.473 0.310 0.395 0.325 0.235 0.456
m({θ 1 }) 0.337 0.318 0.262 0.246 0.435 0.312 evidence combination based on credibility and falsity (EC–CF) pro-
t4 = 23s m({θ 2 }) 0.303 0.269 0.203 0.262 0.259 0.342 posed in Song, Wang, Lei, and Xue (2015b) to make comparison in
m({θ 3 }) 0.360 0.413 0.535 0.492 0.306 0.346 Table 4.
m({θ 1 }) 0.336 0.346 0.241 0.368 0.330 0.303
t5 = 26s m({θ 2 }) 0.312 0.305 0.258 0.262 0.301 0.391
In Table 4, it can be seen that the spatial combinations at t1
m({θ 3 }) 0.352 0.349 0.501 0.370 0.369 0.306 obtained by Dempster’s rule and EC–CF method are quite differ-
ent. At this time node, the recognition result provided by S5 is
conflicting with other sensors’ result. Intuitively, we can note that
S1 , S2 , S3 , S4 and S6 all support {θ 3 }, whereas S5 prefers to {θ 1 }.
5.2. Numerical simulation So the spatial combination result at t1 should assign most BPM
to {θ 3 }. Apparently, EC–CF method can produce more reasonable
This simulation is carried out based on the automatic tar- results coinciding to expectation. The spatial combination results
get comprehensive recognition simulation system. This system is at t2 ∼t5 indicate that Dempster’s rule performs almost identically
founded on the basis of multi-sensor, which can provide continu- to EC–CF method when the conflict degree between BPAs is low.
ous detection on the target within the limited time. The temporal- Moreover, in this simulation, the cardinality of discernment frame
spatial information is integrated according to the temporal-spatial is small, and all BPAs are focusing on singleton subsets. Therefore,
evidence combination process as shown in Fig. 1. compared with Dempster’s rule, EC–CF method cannot bring ad-
In the simulation system, six sensors are located on different ditional computational burden. Hence, EC–CF method will be ap-
platforms. The information provided by different sensors and dif- plied to spatial evidence combination to reduce the influence of
ferent time nodes is mutually independent. This satisfies the re- conflicting information. The temporal combination discussed later
quirement in evidence theory that all evidence sources should be is carried out based on the spatial combination results obtained by
independent. Since feature extraction and classifier design are be- EC–CF method.
yond the scope of this paper, they are not presented here. The tar- The temporal accumulative recognition results are shown in
get may be recognized as airplane, helicopter or rocket. So the dis- Table 5. In order to analyze the performance of TEC-RRF, the results
cernment frame is  = {θ 1 (Airplane),θ 2 (Helicopter),θ 3 (Rocket)}. The produced by Dempster’s rule are also presented to make compari-
target is recognized based on the information from six sensors at son.
five time nodes. The BPA corresponding to each sensor at each Table 5 shows that the system is interfered at t2 = 8s. So the
time node is listed in Table 3. accumulative recognition result at this time node supports {θ 1 } in
Table 4 presents the spatial fusion results at five time nodes. a greater degree than {θ 3 }. With the participation of subsequent
They are obtained by combining the recognition result provided by recognition information, the support degree on {θ 3 } is increasing.
all sensors at each time node. In many available methods for spa- Both methods can reflect this tendency. Since relative reliability is
tial evidence combination, we only choose Dempster’s rule and the considered in TEC-RRF method, the system can recover from inter-
274 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276

Table 5
Temporal accumulative recognition results at each time node.

Time Dempster’s rule TEC-RRF method

node m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 }) m({θ 3 }) m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 }) m({θ 3 }) m()

t1 = 5s 0.2322 0.1299 0.6379 0.2322 0.1299 0.6379 0

t2 = 8s 0.9105 0.0101 0.0794 0.4428 0.0927 0.4645 0
t3 = 16s 0.9150 0.0023 0.0827 0.4541 0.0618 0.4841 0
t4 = 23s 0.7512 0.0 0 09 0.2480 0.1980 0.0565 0.7455 0
t5 = 26s 0.5835 0.0 0 05 0.4160 0.1555 0.0411 0.8034 0

Table 6
Recognition results of each sensor at t2 and t3 .

Time node BPM S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6

t2 = 8s m({θ 1 }) 0.251 0.454 0.269 0.460 0.623 0.124

m({θ 2 }) 0.276 0.236 0.336 0.215 0.142 0.420
m({θ 3 }) 0.473 0.310 0.395 0.325 0.235 0.456
t3 = 16s m({θ 1 }) 0.440 0.628 0.435 0.348 0.642 0.530
m({θ 2 }) 0.323 0.136 0.325 0.262 0.252 0.118
m({θ 3 }) 0.237 0.236 0.240 0.390 0.106 0.352

Table 7
Spatial combination results at each time node after exchanging mt2 and mt3 .

Fig. 2. Temporal evidence accumulation results obtained by Dempster’s rule. Time Dempster’s rule EC–CF method
node m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 }) m({θ 3 }) m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 }) m({θ 3 })

t1 = 5s 0.5529 0.2850 0.1621 0.2322 0.1299 0.6379

t2 = 8s 0.3216 0.0829 0.5955 0.4425 0.0993 0.4582
t3 = 16s 0.9789 0.0077 0.0134 0.9509 0.0189 0.0302
t4 = 23s 0.1715 0.0703 0.7582 0.1951 0.0920 0.7129
t5 = 26s 0.2365 0.1737 0.5898 0.2546 0.1956 0.5498

t2 and t3 will be exchanged. In the modified case, BPAs obtained at

Fig. 3. Temporal evidence accumulation results obtained by TEC-RRF.
fered state in a higher speed. We can note that the final recog-
nition result produced by TEC-RRF is {θ 3 } at t5 = 26s. Whereas
Dempster’s rule recognizes the target as {θ 1 } at t5 = 26s, which is
not consistent to intuitive analysis. We can see that no basic prob-
ability mass is assigned to , so the temporal fusion result can be
used to make decision directly. And the transformation from BPA
to probability is avoided.
For the sake of intuitive comparison, Figs. 2 and 3 show the ten-
dency of BPM when Dempster’s rule and TEC-RRF method are ap-
plied, respectively. In Fig. 2, we note that m({θ 1 }) declines slowly,
while m({θ 3 }) climbs up slowly after time node t2 . When it comes
to t5 = 26s, m({θ 1 }) is still higher than m({θ 3 }). So the target is rec-
ognized as {θ 1 } by Dempster’s rule. When TEC-RRF method is em-
ployed, m({θ 1 }) descends rapidly after the time node t2 , together
with the rapid rise of m({θ 3 }). At the last time node, we can get
m({θ 2 }) < m({θ 1 }) < m({θ 3 }), which can lead to the final deci-
sion {θ 3 }. This result coincides with our intuitive analysis. It is also
demonstrated that TEC-RRF method outperforms Dempster’s rule
in temporal evidence combination.
The calculation process of Dempster’s rule indicates that it
merely combines all temporal evidence bodies one by one, not
considering the influence of conflict between neighboring BPAs.
Our proposed TEC-RRF method can grasp the major features
of temporal evidence combination, i.e., the relationship between
neighboring information. So the role of evidence order can be re-
flected by our proposed method. To demonstrate the effect evi-
dence order on temporal evidence combination, BPAs obtained at
t2 and t3 are listed in Table 6. BPAs obtained at other time nodes
keep unchanged.
Spatial combination results at each time node after exchanging
mt2 and mt3 are shown in Table 7. Compared with Table 4, we can
note that the spatial combination results at t2 and t3 have been ex-
changed. Other spatial combination results are identical to those in
Table 4. This is consistent to the characteristic of spatial evidence
combination.
As before, the spatial combination results produced by EC–CF
method are used for temporal combination. Temporal combina-
tion results obtained by Dempster’s rule and TEC-RRF method are
shown in Table 8.
Comparing Table 8 and Table 5, we find that the temporal fu-
sion results at t2 have been changed. Dempster’s rule cannot bring
any change on the temporal combination results at all time nodes
after t2 . Obviously, the temporal combination result at t1 is just the
spatial combination result. So the application of Dempster’s rule
in temporal evidence combination is similar to its application in
spatial combination, where the dynamic characteristic of temporal
combination cannot be reflected.
We can also note that all temporal combination results obtained
by TEC-RRF method shown in Table 8 are quite different to those
shown in Table 5. Table 7 shows the spatial combination result at
t3 is in high conflicting with subsequent spatial combination re-
sults. The spatial combination results obtained at t2 , t4 , t5 support
{θ 3 } consistently. So we can deem that the interference occurred at
t3 causes deviation on the information. With the consideration of
relative reliability, the reliability of the information collected at t3
is lower. Moreover, the information obtained after t3 is more accu-
racy and more reliable. So the temporal combination result is up-
dated continuously. In the modified case, we can find that rational
decision can be made according to the accumulative recognition
result at t4 . The rationality of this decision is further strengthened
by the temporal combination result at t5 . It can be verified that any
 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276
Table 8
Temporal accumulation results at each time node after exchanging mt2 and mt3 .
Time Dempster’s rule
node m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 })
t1 = 5s 0.2322 0.1299
t2 = 8s 0.2519 0.0316
t3 = 16s 0.9150 0.0023
t4 = 23s 0.7512 0.0 0 09
t5 = 26s 0.5835 0.0 0 05
Fig. 4. The BPM obtained by Dempster’s rule after exchanging mt2 and mt3 .
Fig. 5. The BPM obtained by TEC-RRF after exchanging mt2 and mt3 .
changes on the information order will bring changes on the tem-
poral combination results when TEC-RRF method is applied. This
indicates that TEC-RRF method is sensitive to evidence sequence,
which agrees with the feature of temporal information fusion.
Similarly, the temporal combination results produced by Demp-
ster’s rule and TEC-RRF method are shown in Figs. 4 and 5 re-
spectively, which is helpful for analyzing the changes brought by
such exchanging. Considering Fig. 4 and Fig. 2, we can find that
the change of information obtained at t1 and t2 cannot affect the
basic probability mass distribution after time node t1 . Fig. 5 and
Fig. 3 illustrate that TEC-RRF method can detect the changes on
accumulative combination results at all time nodes caused by ex-
changing. Thus, we can say that the TEC-RRF method is dynamic
enough to reflect the influence of information sequence on tempo-
ral information fusion.
The numerical simulation based on automatic target compre-
hensive recognition simulation system indicates that the proposed
temporal-spatial information fusion model is effective to aggregate
uncertain information in target recognition. The TEC-RRF method
is competent to handling the conflict information in the continu-
ous recognition process. By assigning low reliability factor to con-
flicting information, the proposed method can reduce the influ-
ence of conflicting information on the final result. Moreover, it can
be noted that different recognition results will be obtained when
the order of information flow is changed. This shows the dynamic
characteristic of the TEC-RRF method, which coincides with the na-
ture of temporal information fusion.
275
TEC-RRF method
m({θ 3 }) m({θ 1 }) m({θ 2 }) m({θ 3 }) m()
0.6379 0.2322 0.1299 0.6379 0
0.7165 0.2407 0.0875 0.6718 0
0.0827 0.2444 0.0649 0.6907 0
0.2480 0.1409 0.0512 0.8080 0
0.4160 0.1682 0.1122 0.7196 0
6. Conclusion
Temporal information fusion based on evidence theory is ad-
dressed in this paper to enhance the ability of information fu-
sion system on dealing with conflicting information. The con-
cept of relative reliability is first proposed by applying the ERE-
IFMCDM method to evaluate the reliability of BPAs at neighbor-
ing time nodes. Then temporal evidence combination rule based
on evidence discounting and relative reliability (TEC-RRF) is pro-
posed. A temporal-spatial information fusion model is founded
based on TEC-RRF method. Numerical examples and simulation are
employed to demonstrate the performance of TEC-RRF method. It
is demonstrated that TEC-RRF method can handle the conflict be-
tween temporal information in a better way. In TEC-RRF method,
the temporal combination result at current time node can be seen
as the inheritance and updating of previous time node. It is sen-
sitive to changes of sequence order, which reflects the dynamic
characteristics of temporal information fusion. Moreover, the anti-
interference ability of fusion system can be enhanced by TEC-RRF
method.
In uncertain condition, an expert system should make decision
based on incomplete information collected from multiple sources
continuously. So robust fusion of temporal information is crucial
for the reliability and credibility of expert systems. The proposed
temporal fusion method is time sensitive. It reflects the dynamic
characteristic of expert systems. The temporal-spatial information
fusion model introduced in this paper provides a dynamic perspec-
tive for the information fusion, which is helpful for the design of
expert systems.
It is noteworthy that temporal information fusion is a complex
engineering problem. Many factors should be taken into consider-
ation in real-life temporal information fusion. Based on the fusion
model proposed by this paper, there are several issues deserved to
investigate in the future:
• TEC-RTRF method proposed in Song et al. (2015) introduced
real time reliability factor of temporal information, which was
determined by the moment when it was collected. The com-
bination of relative reliability factor and real time reliability is
helpful for a more comprehensive temporal information fusion.
• The reliability of temporal evidence is evaluated from an intu-
itionistic fuzzy view, which increased the computation burden.
Seeking other effective reliability evaluation method is helpful
to improve the fusion of temporal information.
• For a more intelligent fusion system, it should be aware of the
conflict in information flow and the reason that causes it. So
intelligent perception methods is required by temporal-spatial
information fusion.
• The relationship between evidence theory and intuitionistic
fuzzy sets should be further explored from the mathematical
viewpoint. This may be a difficult but interesting topic.
• It is necessary to extend our proposed method and combine it
with other useful theory to explore more effective temporal in-
formation fusion methods.
• The application of the proposed model to more practical areas
should be explored.
276 C.-l. Fan et al. / Expert Systems With Applications 113 (2018) 264–276

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