Multicriteria decision-making method using expected value-based cosine similarity measure for trapezoidal fuzzy numbers

A fuzzy multicriteria decision-making method based on a cosine similarity measure between expected values of trapezoidal fuzzy numbers is proposed under the conditions that criteria weights and evaluated values in decision matrix are expressed by means of trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Through the cosine similarity measure between each alternative and the ideal alternative, the ranking order of all alternatives can be determined and the best alternative can be easily identified as well. An illustrative example shows that the proposed method is simple and applicable.