A contribution to convergence theory of fuzzy c-means and derivatives

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the convergence and optimization properties of fuzzy clustering algorithms, in general, and the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm, in particular. Our investigation includes probabilistic and (a slightly modified implementation of) possibilistic memberships, which will be discussed under a unified view. We give a convergence proof for the axis-parallel variant of the algorithm by Gustafson and Kessel, that can be generalized to other algorithms more easily than in the usual approach. Using reformulated fuzzy clustering algorithms, we apply Banach's classical contraction principle and establish a relationship between saddle points and attractive fixed points. For the special case of FCM we derive a sufficient condition for fixed points to be attractive, allowing identification of them as (local) minima of the objective function (excluding the possibility of a saddle point).