Comparison study of an in-house developed tool and commercial software for ANN modeling

This study presents a comparison of an in-house developed tool called Artificial Neural Network Model Developer (ANNMD) and commercial software for modeling with Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). The development of ANNMD is based on initiatives from previous experiences in ANN modeling of complex energy systems which require extensive examination of measured parameters in order to obtain reliable ANN models. The ANNMD is a generic tool the main idea of which is to perform fast, user-friendly modeling and with automated sensitivity analysis (SA) in conjunction with parameters that are important in every ANN modeling. In addition, commercial software for ANN modeling - which has been present on the market for more than a decade - was used. The comparison was established on the same basis with respect to network configuration, main training settings and data used, hence enabling as objective analysis as possible. Modeling time, number of trainings and model´s accuracy obtained by the two tools were the measures for the comparison.