From Zhang Neural Network to Newton Iteration for Matrix Inversion

Different from gradient-based neural networks, a special kind of recurrent neural network (RNN) has recently been proposed by Zhang for online matrix inversion. Such an RNN is designed based on a matrix-valued error function instead of a scalar-valued error function. In addition, it was depicted in an implicit dynamics instead of an explicit dynamics. In this paper, we develop and investigate a discrete-time model of Zhang neural network (termed as such and abbreviated as ZNN for presentation convenience), which is depicted by a system of difference equations. Comparing with Newton iteration for matrix inversion, we find that the discrete-time ZNN model incorporates Newton iteration as its special case. Noticing this relation, we perform numerical comparisons on different situations of using ZNN and Newton iteration for matrix inversion. Different kinds of activation functions and different step-size values are examined for superior convergence and better stability of ZNN. Numerical examples demonstrate the efficacy of both ZNN and Newton iteration for online matrix inversion.