Fuzzy Knowledge Based Expert System for Prediction of Color Strength of Cotton Knitted Fabrics

The present study is intended to develop an intelligent model for the prediction of color strength of cotton knitted fabrics using fuzzy knowledge based expert system (FKBES). The factors chosen for developing the prediction model are dye concentration, dyeing time and process temperature. Besides, such factors are nonlinear and have mutual interactions among them; so it is not easy to create an exact correlation between the inputs variables and color strength using mathematical or statistical methods. In contrast, artificial neural network and neural-fuzzy models require massive amounts of experimental data for model parameters optimization which are challenging to collect from the dyeing industries. In this context, fuzzy knowledge based expert system is the most efficient modeling tool which performs exceptionally well in a non-linear complex domain with lowest amount of trial data like human experts. In this study, laboratory scale experiments were conducted for three types of cotton knitted fabrics to verify the developed fuzzy model. It was found that actual and predicted values of color strength of the knitted fabrics were in good agreement with each other with less than 5% absolute error.