title: An efficient sequential learning algorithm for growing and pruning RBF (GAP-RBF) networks.
abstract: This paper presents a simple sequential growing and pruning algorithm for radial basis function (RBF) networks. The algorithm referred to as growing and pruning (GAP)-RBF uses the concept of "Significance" of a neuron and links it to the learning accuracy. "Significance" of a neuron is defined as its contribution to the network output averaged over all the input data received so far. Using a piecewise-linear approximation for the Gaussian function, a simple and efficient way of computing this significance has been derived for uniformly distributed input data. In the GAP-RBF algorithm, the growing and pruning are based on the significance of the "nearest" neuron. In this paper, the performance of the GAP-RBF learning algorithm is compared with other well-known sequential learning algorithms like RAN, RANEKF, and MRAN on an artificial problem with uniform input distribution and three real-world nonuniform, higher dimensional benchmark problems. The results indicate that the GAP-RBF algorithm can provide comparable generalization performance with a considerably reduced network size and training time.
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798. egbhuang@ntu.edu.sg
authors.forename: Guang-Bin
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Saratchandran
authors.forename: Narasimhan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sundararajan
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003198:Computer Simulation; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer