This study presents a new methodology to establish an optimal network for the spherical radial basis functions (SRBFs) by employing the Balanced Iterative Reducing and Clustering using Hierarchies (BIRCH) algorithm. In the proposed methodology, sub-cluster centers obtained by the BIRCH algorithm are replaced with the center of the SRBFs. Since the horizontal positions of the observations are utilized in the clustering, the SRBFs are distributed adaptively to the data. The algorithm’s performance and the effects of the BIRCH parameters are investigated in detail with real and simulated data sets in the Auvergne and Colorado areas, respectively. The bandwidth of each SRBF is determined by the generalized cross-validation (GCV) technique. The turning point algorithm is employed to reduce long-wavelength errors that occur due to the always positivity of the selected Legendre coefficients in the spatial domain. The outcomes of the numerical tests show that only one parameter (threshold) is enough to construct a proper data-adaptive network design for SRBFs. Compared to existing algorithms, fewer SRBFs are required to achieve the same accuracy on the control points while saving more than 95% of the time in the network design. Furthermore, the proposed methodology improves the condition number of the normal equation matrix. That makes it possible to estimate unknown coefficients without regularization in the least-square procedure depending on the selected threshold parameter. Therefore, the BIRCH algorithm is very effective and suitable to establish an optimal data-adaptive network design, especially in large data sets.
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