Using the Hamming distance to extend TOPSIS in a fuzzy environment (Q2389552)

The study offers an extension of the well-known technique of order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) by admitting both rating of the existing alternatives with respect to the available criteria as well as the weights of the criteria themselves to be treated as fuzzy numbers. More specifically, the granularity of such ratings and weights is expressed in terms of triangular fuzzy numbers. The underlying fuzzy decision matrix (with rows corresponding to the alternatives and columns describing respective criteria) comes with its entries \(X_{ij}\) which are fuzzy numbers. To assess the fuzzy positive ideal solution and the fuzzy negative ideal solution used is the method of ordering fuzzy numbers. In the sequel to determine the ranking order of the corresponding alternative, one computes the Hamming distance between the fuzzy set of the alternative and the fuzzy positive (or negative) ideal solution. An illustrative numeric example is provided as well.