Intuitionistic fuzzy density based spatial clustering of applications with noise: IFDBSCAN

Abstract

Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Application with Noise (DBSCAN) is a well-known, unsupervised machine learning tool for clustering. DBSCAN creates clusters based on dense regions while marking points that lie alone in low-density regions as outliers. In DBSCAN, the density is detected via core points which are quite sensitive to input parameters: ϵ is radius of the neighborhood and MinPts is minimum number of points constraint within ϵ radius. In contrast to crisp core point definition, intuitionistic fuzzy core point definition makes DBSCAN algorithm capable to detect different patterns of density by two different combinations of input parameters. In this study, a DBSCAN extension is proposed based on this idea: IFDBSCAN. The proposed extension is then illustrated by a computational experiment on a synthetic dataset. Results show that, IFDBSCAN can establish fine-tuned clusters relatively to classical DBSCAN and provide users more insight on the estimation of input parameters.