The Spiral Discovery Network as an Automated General-Purpose Optimization Tool

Abstract

The Spiral Discovery Method (SDM) was originally proposed as a cognitive artifact for dealing with black-box models that are dependent on multiple inputs with nonlinear and/or multiplicative interaction effects. Besides directly helping to identify functional patterns in such systems, SDM also simplifies their control through its characteristic spiral structure. In this paper, a neural network-based formulation of SDM is proposed together with a set of automatic update rules that makes it suitable for both semiautomated and automated forms of optimization. The behavior of the generalized SDM model, referred to as the Spiral Discovery Network (SDN), and its applicability to nondifferentiable nonconvex optimization problems are elucidated through simulation. Based on the simulation, the case is made that its applicability would be worth investigating in all areas where the default approach of gradient-based backpropagation is used today.