Weapon system effectiveness evaluation based on Z-number

Accurate and objective evaluation of weapon system effectiveness is of critical significance to the use of weapons in military operation. Considering the uncertainty and incompleteness of information or data, a novel method is proposed for the evaluation of weapon system effectiveness with the concept of Z-number (proposed by Zadeh) which relates to the issue of reliability or certainty of information. According to the confidence degree of information, the natural language is transformed into numerical value to measure the score of systems with the notion of fuzzy number and membership. The use of Z-number in evaluation of weapon system effectiveness enables decision makers to get more comprehensive understanding of different weapon systems. A numerical example on Z-number is used to illustrate the efficiency of this method when it helps make decisions. The method based on Z-number is much more objective for evaluating a system, and it can be extended to many realms, especially in multi-criteria decision-making under uncertain information.