FEED-FORWARD NEURAL NETWORKS TRAINING: A COMPARISON BETWEEN GENETIC ALGORITHM AND BACK-PROPAGATION LEARNING ALGORITHM

Abstract

This study discusses the advantages and characteristics of the genetic algo- rithm and back-propagation neural network to train a feed-forward neural network to cope with weighting adjustment problems. We compare the performances of a back-propagation neural network and genetic algorithm in the training outcomes of three examples by re- ferring to the measurement indicators and experiment data. The results show that the back-propagation neural network is superior to the genetic algorithm. Also, the back- propagation neural network has faster training speed than the genetic algorithm. How- ever, the back-propagation neural network has the shortcoming of overtraining, while the genetic algorithm does not. The experiment result proves that the back-propagation neu- ral network yields better outcomes than the genetic algorithm.