neural networks research group
areas
people
projects
demos
publications
software/data
Automatic Feature Selection via Neuroevolution (2005)
Shimon Whiteson
and
Peter Stone
and
Kenneth O. Stanley
and
Risto Miikkulainen
and
Nate Kohl
Feature selection is the process of finding the set of inputs to a machine learning algorithm that will yield the best performance. Developing a way to solve this problem automatically would make current machine learning methods much more useful. Previous efforts to automate feature selection rely on expensive meta-learning or are applicable only when labeled training data is available. This paper presents a novel method called FS-NEAT which extends the NEAT neuroevolution method to automatically determine an appropriate set of inputs for the networks it evolves. By learning the network's inputs, topology, and weights simultaneously, FS-NEAT addresses the feature selection problem without relying on meta-learning or labeled data. Initial experiments in an autonomous car racing simulation demonstrate that FS-NEAT can learn better and faster than regular NEAT. In addition, the networks it evolves are smaller and require fewer inputs. Furthermore, FS-NEAT's performance remains robust even as the feature selection task it faces is made increasingly difficult.
View:
PDF
,
PS
,
HTML
Citation:
In
Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference
, June 2005.
Bibtex:
@InProceedings{GECCO05-fsneat, title={Automatic Feature Selection via Neuroevolution}, author={Shimon Whiteson and Peter Stone and Kenneth O. Stanley and Risto Miikkulainen and Nate Kohl}, booktitle={Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference}, month={June}, url="http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/?whiteson:gecco05", year={2005} }
People
Nate Kohl
Ph.D. Alumni
nate [at] natekohl net
Risto Miikkulainen
Faculty
risto [at] cs utexas edu
Kenneth Stanley
Postdoctoral Alumni
kstanley [at] cs ucf edu
Peter Stone
pstone [at] cs utexas edu
Shimon Whiteson
Former Collaborator
s a whiteson [at] uva nl
Areas of Interest
Neuroevolution