Self-organizing neurofuzzy networks based on evolutionary fuzzy granulation

Abstract

Experimental software datasets describing software projects in terms of their complexity and development time have been a subject of intensive modeling. A number of various modeling methodologies and modeling designs have been proposed including such development frameworks as neural networks, fuzzy and neurofuzzy models. In this study, we introduce a concept of self-organizing neurofuzzy networks (SONFN), a hybrid modeling architecture combining neurofuzzy networks (NFN) and polynomial neural networks (PNN). For these networks we develop a comprehensive design methodology. The construction of SONFNs takes advantage of the well-established technologies of computational intelligence (CI), namely fuzzy sets, neural networks and genetic algorithms. The architecture of the SONFN results from a synergistic usage of NFNs and PNNs. NFN contributes to the formation of the premise part of the rule-based structure of the SONFN. The consequence part of the SONFN is designed using PNNs. We discuss two types of SONFN architectures whose taxonomy is based on the NFN scheme being applied to the premise part of SONFN. We introduce a comprehensive learning algorithm. It is shown that this network exhibits a dynamic structure as the number of its layers as well as the number of nodes in each layer of the SONFN are not predetermined (as this is the case in a popular topology of a multilayer perceptron). The experimental results include a well-known NASA dataset concerning software cost estimation.