Classification and function approximation using feed-forward shunting inhibitory artificial neural networks

In this article we propose a new class of artificial neural networks for classification and function approximation. These networks are referred to as shunting inhibitory artificial neural networks (SIANN). A SIANN consists of one or more hidden layers comprised of shunting neurons, the outputs of which are combined linearly to form the desired output. The basic synaptic interaction of the hidden units is shunting inhibition. Due to the inherent nonlinearity mediated by shunting inhibition, SIANN networks are capable of constructing a large repertoire of decision surfaces, ranging from simple hyperplanes to very complex nonlinear hypersurfaces. Therefore, developing efficient training algorithms for these networks should simplify the design of very powerful classifiers and function approximators. In this paper some examples of complex decision regions formed by SIANN are illustrated. Furthermore, a method for training feedforward SIANN is developed based on the error backpropagation algorithm. Finally, simulation results which illustrate the performance of SIANN in function approximation and classification tasks are presented and compared with results obtained from multilayer perceptron networks.