Data-Free Solution of Electromagnetic PDEs Using Neural Networks and Extension to Transfer Learning

Abstract

In this article, we present a data-free method to solve differential equation using artificial neural networks (ANN). This method exploits the universal function approximation nature of a neural network to mimic a specified partial differential equation (PDE) and provide its solution. Specifically, use of simple feed-forward artificial neural network (FF-ANN) is shown to demonstrate the solution of 1-D second-order differential equations without use of any prior data. The article also demonstrates that the similarity in two PDEs is akin to similarity in the optimized weight matrices attained after the solution using FF-ANN. This property is then utilized for a transferred learning to enable faster convergence of a new PDE, based on the prior solution of a similar PDE. The concept is shown while considering a general form of second-order PDE, and considering specific cases of scalar in-homogeneous wave equation form and Poisson Equation form. Error convergence below 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">−6</sup> is shown and the transferred learning process shows typical time acceleration by a factor of 1.5–3 for the considered equations.