Clustering Ensemble Based on Fuzzy Matrix Self-Enhancement

Fuzzy clustering ensemble techniques have been proven to yield more accurate and robust clustering results, with the mainstream methods relying on the fuzzy co-association (FCA) matrix. However, the inherent issues of low-value density and uniform dispersion in the FCA matrix significantly affect the performance of fuzzy clustering ensembles, an aspect that has been overlooked. To address this issue, we propose a novel framework for fuzzy clustering ensemble based on fuzzy matrix self-enhancement (FMSE). Specifically, we initially employ singular value decomposition to extract the principal components of the FCA matrix, thereby alleviating its low-value density. Second, on the basis of the criterion of fuzzy entropy, we measure the fuzziness of samples, design a metric for the fuzzy representativeness of samples, and incorporate it into a fusion-weighted structure for the reconstruction of the FCA matrix, mitigating uniform dispersion. Subsequently, on the basis of the self-enhanced fuzzy matrix model, we utilize a prototype diffusion approach to identify core samples and gradually allocate remaining samples to obtain a consensus clustering solution. Extensive comparative experiments on benchmark datasets against state-of-the-art clustering ensemble methods demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach.