An innovative approach to the determination of uncertainty in measurements based on fuzzy variables

Abstract

The determination of the uncertainty of the result of a measurement is presently attained by means of a statistical inference, as suggested by the IEC-ISO Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurements. This approach has been proved to be not totally viable when the result of the measurement comes from a complex elaboration of the input signals. The paper proposes the application of the fuzzy variables and mathematics to the determination of the uncertainty, since they appear to be able to describe the possible distribution of the results of a measurement in a more effective way than the statistical approach. The fundamentals of the employed mathematics are recalled, and applied to the determination of the uncertainty in power measurements. The results obtained by the proposed method are compared with those obtained experimentally.