Abstract Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence combination is widely used in the field of information fusion. However, it has a counter intuitive problem in highly conflictive evidence combination. Aiming at this problem, the source of evidence is analyzed, and then an evidence combination method based on cosine is proposed. Firstly, Pignistic probability is utilized to analyze the evidence source. Next, conflictive evidence is identified by comparing the included angle cosine with the threshold. Conflictive evidence is revised according to the variable correction factor generated from the relationship among evidences and the probability assignment of non-conflictive evidences. Finally, Dempster-Shafer rule is utilized to combine evidences. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective in handing highly conflictive evidences and the combination result obtained in the case of multi-conflictive evidences is good. The proposed method can be widely used in the field of multi-source information fusion, pattern recognition and uncertain information decision-making.
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2015, Vol. 28 
