Abstract:

In this paper a new technique has been proposed for cotton bale management using fuzzy logic. The fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm has been applied for clustering cotton bales into 5 categories from 1200 randomly chosen bales of the J-34 variety. In order to cluster bales of different categories, eight fibre properties, viz., the strength, elongation, upper half mean length, length uniformity, short fibre content, micronaire, reflectance and yellowness of each bale have been considered. The fuzzy c-means clustering method is able to handle the haziness that may be present in the boundaries between adjacent classes of cotton bales as compared to the K-means clustering method. This method may be used as a convenient tool for the consistent picking of different bale mixes from any number of bales in a warehouse.