A comparative performance of machine learning algorithms on laser‐induced breakdown spectroscopy data of minerals

Abstract

AbstractThe exploration and analyses of chemical components in (extra‐)terrestrial geological materials (such as asteroids and meteorites) are insightful in modern research. Laser‐induced breakdown spectroscopy (LiBS) is a popular method for analyzing the chemical attributes of geologic samples—which scientists use to study and understand planetary bodies and their complex histories. In the literature, several machine learning models that produce high‐accuracy predictions have been proposed. In our work, we compared the performances of such models in predicting elemental abundances on a certain spectroscopic dataset. Models included partial least squares (PLS), extreme gradient boost machines (XGB), neural networks, and linear models. In our results, we showed how PLS and XGB are superior in terms of high predictive power, their ability to generalize, and their reasonably efficient runtimes. In addition, we proposed Ensemble models that aggregate predictions of top‐tier models and observed that they can be desirable. We intend to gain better understanding of how these models perform in predicting elemental compositions on specific spectrum (LIBS) datasets.