A Monotonous Intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS Method Under General Linear Orders via Admissible Distance Measures

All intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS methods contain two key elements: (1) the order structure, which can affect the choices of positive and negative ideal-points, and construction of admissible distance/similarity measures; (2) the distance/similarity measure, which is closely related to the values of the relative closeness degrees and determines the accuracy and rationality of decision-making. For the order structure, many efforts are devoted to constructing some score functions, which can strictly distinguish different intuitionistic fuzzy values (IFVs) and preserve the natural partial order for IFVs. This paper proves that such a score function does not exist. For the distance or similarity measure, some examples are given to show that classical similarity measures based on the Euclidean distance and Minkowski distance do not meet the axiomatic definition of IF similarity measures. Moreover, some illustrative examples are given to show that classical intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS methods do not ensure the monotonicity with the natural partial order or linear orders, which may yield some counter-intuitive results. To overcome the limitation of non-monotonicity, we propose a novel intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS method, using three new admissible distances with the linear orders measured by a score degree/similarity function and accuracy degree, or two aggregation functions, and prove that the proposed TOPSIS method is monotonous under these three linear orders. This is the first result with a strict mathematical proof on the monotonicity with the linear orders for the intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS method. Finally, we show two practical examples to illustrate the efficiency of the developed TOPSIS.

Automated summary

All intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS methods contain two key elements: the order structure and the distance/similarity measure. This paper proves that there is no score function that can strictly distinguish different intuitionistic fuzzy values and preserve the natural partial order. It also shows that classical similarity measures and intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS methods do not ensure monotonicity with linear orders. To overcome this limitation, a novel intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS method is proposed and its monotonicity with linear orders is mathematically proved.