An incremental network for on-line unsupervised classification and topology learning

✍ Scribed by Shen Furao; Osamu Hasegawa

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 787 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0893-6080
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neunet.2005.04.006

✦ Synopsis

This paper presents an on-line unsupervised learning mechanism for unlabeled data that are polluted by noise. Using a similarity threshold-based and a local error-based insertion criterion, the system is able to grow incrementally and to accommodate input patterns of on-line non-stationary data distribution. A definition of a utility parameter, the error-radius, allows this system to learn the number of nodes needed to solve a task. The use of a new technique for removing nodes in low probability density regions can separate clusters with low-density overlaps and dynamically eliminate noise in the input data. The design of two-layer neural network enables this system to represent the topological structure of unsupervised on-line data, report the reasonable number of clusters, and give typical prototype patterns of every cluster without prior conditions such as a suitable number of nodes or a good initial codebook.