Reducing the search space of a linear fractional programming problem under fuzzy relational equations with max-Archimedean t-norm composition

Prior studies have demonstrated that one of the minimal solutions of a fuzzy relational equation with the max-Archimedean t-norm composition is an optimal solution of a linear objective function with positive coefficients. However, this property cannot be adopted to optimize the problem of a linear fractional objective function. This study presents an efficient method to optimize such a linear fractional programming problem. First, some theoretical results are developed based on the properties of max-Archimedean t-norm composition. The result is used to reduce the feasible domain. The problem can thus be simplified and converted into a traditional linear fractional programming problem, and eventually optimized in a small search space. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the procedure.