TODIM-based multi-criteria decision-making method with hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets

As a popular tool for modeling the qualitative assessment information, the hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets (HFLTSs) can allow the decision makes or experts to give several possible linguistic terms to rate the objects with respect to the criterion. Although there exist many multi-criteria decision-making methods put forward for handling the HFLTSs, they were developed based on the assumption that the decision makers can always provide completely rational assessments and they do not take the decision makers’ psychological behaviors into consideration. In this paper, the traditional TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive multi-criteria decision making) method is extended to handle the HFLTSs based on the novel comparison function and distance measure. Firstly, we put forward a novel function for comparing two HFLTSs more effectively. After that, a novel hesitance degree function as well as some novel distance measures are given for HFLTSs. Then we apply them to extend the traditional TODIM method for solving the HFLTSs. Finally, a practical example concerning the evaluation and ranking of several satellite launching centers is provided to illustrate the validity and applicability of the proposed method.