In this paper, we propose an evolutionary approach to architecture design of modular dynamical neural networks. As one of modular dynamical neural networks, we adopt Cross-Coupled Hopfield Nets (CCHN) in which plural Hopfield networks are coupled to each other. The architecture of CCHN is represented by some structural-parameters such as the number of modules, the numbers of units per module, the module connectivity, and so forth. In the proposed design method, these structural-parameters are treated as phenotype of an individual, and suitable modular architecture is searched through the evolution of its genetic representation (genotype) by using genetic algorithms. Based on a simple direct coding method, the order of length of genetic representation for the structural-parameters can be estimated to be
O(
N2) where N is the total number of units. On the other hand, the order of genetic representation proposed here is
O(
N). To verify the usefulness of proposed method, we apply a CCHN to associative memories. Here, the fitness of an individual is defined so as to be larger when a CCHN has a simpler architecture as well as when the association performance is higher. As the result of simulations, we certify that the proposed design method can find high-performance CCHN with simple modular architectures.
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