Fuzzy order statistics and their application to fuzzy clustering

The median and the median absolute deviation (MAD) are robust statistics based on order statistics. Order statistics are extended to fuzzy sets to define a fuzzy median and a fuzzy MAD. The fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm is defined for any p-norm (pFCM), including the l/sub 1/-norm (1FCM), The 1FCM clustering algorithm is implemented via the alternating optimization (AO) method and the clustering centers are shown to be the fuzzy median. The resulting AO-1FCM clustering algorithm is called the fuzzy c-medians (FCMED) clustering algorithm. An example illustrates the robustness of the FCMED.