Genetic optimization of neural network architecture. Final report

Neural networks are now a popular technology for a broad variety of application domains, including the electric utility industry. Yet, as the technology continues to gain increasing acceptance, it is also increasingly apparent that the power that neural networks provide is not an unconditional blessing. Considerable care must be exercised during application development if the full benefit of the technology is to be realized. At present, no fully general theory or methodology for neural network design is available, and application development is a trial-and-error process that is time-consuming and expertise-intensive. Each application demands appropriate selections of the network input space, the network structure, and values of learning algorithm parameters-design choices that are closely coupled in ways that largely remain a mystery. This EPRI-funded exploratory research project was initiated to take the key next step in this research program: the validation of the approach on a realistic problem. We focused on the problem of modeling the thermal performance of the TVA Sequoyah nuclear power plant (units 1 and 2).