Self-organizing learning array.
A new machine learning concept--self-organizing learning array (SOLAR)--is presented. It is a sparsely connected, information theory-based learning machine, with a multilayer structure. It has reconfigurable processing units (neurons) and an evolvable system structure, which makes it an adaptive classification system for a variety of machine learning problems. Its multilayer structure can handle complex problems. Based on the entropy estimation, information theory-based learning is performed locally at each neuron. Neural parameters and connections that correspond to minimum entropy are adaptively set for each neuron. By choosing connections for each neuron, the system sets up its wiring and completes its self-organization. SOLAR classifies input data based on the weighted statistical information from all the neurons. The system classification ability has been simulated and experiments were conducted using test-bench data. Results show a very good performance compared to other classification methods. An important advantage of this structure is its scalability to a large system and ease of hardware implementation on regular arrays of cells.