Wheat crop yield prediction using new activation functions in neural network

Abstract

This research mainly based on multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural networks technique of data mining to forecast the wheat crop yield at the district level. There are many statistical and simulation models available, but the proposed algorithm with new activation function provides promising results in a shorter time with more accuracy. Sigmoid and hyperbolic tangent activation functions are widely used in the neural network. The activation functions play an important role in the neural network learning algorithm. The main objective of the proposed work is to develop an amended MLP neural network with new activation function and revised random weights and bias values for crop yield estimation by using the different weather parameter datasets. MLP model has been tested by existing activation functions and newly created activation functions with different cases including weights and bias values. In this research study, we evaluate the result of different activation functions and recommend some new simple activation functions, named DharaSig, DharaSigm and SHBSig, to improve the performance of neural networks and accurate results. Also, three new activation functions created with little variations in the DharaSig function named DharaSig1, DharaSig2 and DharaSig3. In this research study, variable numbers of hidden layers are tested with the variable number of neurons per hidden layer for the agriculture dataset. Variable values of momentum, seed and learning rate are also used in this study. Experiments show that newly created activation functions provide better results compared to ‘sigmoid’ default neural network activation function for agriculture datasets.