High-order neural network structure selection for function approximation applications using genetic algorithms

Neural network literature for function approximation is by now sufficiently rich. In its complete form, the problem entails both parametric (i.e., weights determination) and structural learning (i.e., structure selection). The majority of works deal with parametric uncertainty assuming knowledge of the appropriate neural structure. In this paper we present an algorithmic approach to determine the structure of high order neural networks (HONNs), to solve function approximation problems. The method is based on a genetic algorithm (GA) and is equipped with a stable update law to guarantee parametric learning. Simulation results on an illustrative example highlight the performance and give some insight of the proposed approach.