A comprehensive review on ensemble deep learning: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract

In machine learning, two approaches outperform traditional algorithms: ensemble learning and deep learning. The former refers to methods that integrate multiple base models in the same framework to obtain a stronger model that outperforms them. The success of an ensemble method depends on several factors, including how the baseline models are trained and how they are combined. In the literature, there are common approaches to building an ensemble model successfully applied in several domains. On the other hand, deep learning-based models have improved the predictive accuracy of machine learning across a wide range of domains. Despite the diversity of deep learning architectures and their ability to deal with complex problems and the ability to extract features automatically, the main challenge in deep learning is that it requires a lot of expertise and experience to tune the optimal hyper-parameters, which makes it a tedious and time-consuming task. Numerous recent research efforts have been made to approach ensemble learning to deep learning to overcome this challenge. Most of these efforts focus on simple ensemble methods that have some limitations. Hence, this review paper provides comprehensive reviews of the various strategies for ensemble learning, especially in the case of deep learning. Also, it explains in detail the various features or factors that influence the success of ensemble methods. In addition, it presents and accurately categorized several research efforts that used ensemble learning in a wide range of domains.