A combination rule of evidence theory based on similarity of focal elements

Aiming at the problems of irrational assignment of conflict evidence, one-vote negation and poor robustness in evidence combination, a combination rule is proposed based on the notion of the similarity of focal elements and the distances between focal elements. The process of combination is divided into two parts, combination with and without conflicted mass. The mathematical proof of the proposed combination rule is presented, and the comparative experiments are conducted. The results show that the proposed rule can assign the conflicted mass rationally and avoid one-vote negation with good robustness.