Decision Based on Multiple Values

Dear All

I have sensor measurement data arranged in the format shown below:

The first three values in each row represents the sensing pair and the last value (highlighted in yellow) shows the position of the object in the sensing area. The decision of the position can only be made by considering the first 3 values. 1 1 1 is the minimum value and 8 8 8 is the maximum value and there are lots of combinations as shown in the figure. If I use simple if else statement I have to use a lot of them which to be honest is not a good approach.

My question is if there is a way to do this smartly without using a lots of if and else?

Thank you

[Walter Roberson]

6 5 4 leads to two different outcomes

[M Sattar]

Dear Mr Walter
Thankk you for the comment. Indeed they show different outcomes. The arragnment of the values have impact on the position for example 654 shows it to be at position 2 whereas 546 tells us that it lies in position 3.

[Walter Roberson]

line 5 compared to line 8

6 5 4 2   line 5
6 5 4 4   line 8

[M Sattar]

I am sorry this is a mistake

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.mathworks.com/help/stats/decision-trees.html

Decision trees can construct an appropriate output structure from data

Answer 2

[Harry Laing]

Unless there is some mathematical formula that you use to determine the position (which we don't know), then I'm afraid a long list of is/else statements seems likely.

Alternatively, you could create a 'master' reference array, that contains all the exisiting combinations and the resulting position, and then just compare the sensor data to determine the resulting positon.

E.g:

% Assuming you have an array of all sensor values / positons called MASTER_array
% Assuming your sensor data is called SENSOR_data

[NumRows_data,NumCols_data] = size(SENSOR_data);
[NumRows_master,NumCols_master] = size(MASTER_array);

object_position = NaN(NumRows_data,1); % Initialise 'position' vector for each row in sensor data

for i = 1:NumRows_data
    for j = 1:NumRows_master
        
        % test to compare each row of master array with current sensor array
        if MASTER_array(j,1:3)==SENSOR_data(i,1:3) 
            
            % if sensor matches master, use 4th col in master for position
            object_position(i)=MASTER_array(j,4);
        end
        
    end  
end