Artificial Neural Networks for Classification Tasks: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have become indispensable tools for solving classification tasks across various domains. This systematic literature review explores the landscape of ANN utilization in classification, addressing three key research questions: the types of architectures employed, their accuracy, and the data utilized. The review encompasses 30 studies published between 2019 and 2024, revealing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) as the predominant architecture in image-related tasks, followed by Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) architectures for general classification tasks. Feed Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) exhibited the highest average accuracy with a 97.12%, with specific studies achieving exceptional results across diverse classification tasks. Moreover, the review identifies digitized images as a commonly utilized data source, reflecting the broad applicability of ANNs in tasks such as medical diagnosis and remote sensing. The findings underscore the importance of machine learning approaches, highlight the robustness of ANNs in achieving high accuracy, and suggest avenues for future research to enhance interpretability, efficiency, and generalization capabilities, as well as address challenges related to data quality.