Radial basis function approach to pattern recognition and its applications

Pattern recognition is one of the most common problems encountered in engineering and scientific disciplines, which involves developing prediction or classification models from historic data or training samples. This paper introduces a new approach, called the Representational Capability (RC) algorithm, to handle pattern recognition problems using radial basis function (RBF) models. The RC algorithm has been developed based on the mathematical properties of the interpolation and design matrices of RBF models. The model development process based on this algorithm not only yields the best model in the sense of balancing its parsimony and generalization ability, but also provides insights into the design process by employing a design parameter (δ). We discuss the RC algorithm and its use at length via an illustrative example. In addition, RBF classification models are developed for heart disease diagnosis.