A multiobjective analysis of adaptive clustering algorithms for the definition of RBF neural network centers in regression problems

Abstract

A variety of clustering algorithms have been applied to determine the internal structure of Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (RBFNNs). k-means algorithm is one of the most common choice for this task, although, like many other clustering algorithms, it needs to receive the number of prototypes a priori. This is a nontrivial procedure, mainly for real-world applications. An alternative is to use algorithms that automatically determine the number of prototypes. In this paper, we performed a multiobjective analysis involving three of these algorithms, which are: Adaptive Radius Immune Algorithm (ARIA), Affinity Propagation (AP), and Growing Neural Gas (GNG). For each one, the parameters that most influence the resulting number of prototypes composed the decision space, while the RBFNN RMSE and the number of prototypes formed the objective space. The experiments found that ARIA solutions achieved the best results for the multiobjective metrics adopted in this paper. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.