Memetic Extreme Learning Machine

• We propose a self-adaptive network parameter optimized method for ELM.
• Memetic Algorithm (MA) is used for network parameter optimization.
• We analyze the time complexity and convergence for the proposed method.
• Experiment results on 46 UCI datasets demonstrate the algorithm performance.

Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is a promising model for training single-hidden layer feedforward networks (SLFNs) and has been widely used for classification. However, ELM faces the challenge of arbitrarily selected parameters, e.g., the network weights and hidden biases. Therefore, many efforts have been made to enhance the performance of ELM, such as using evolutionary algorithms to explore promising areas of the solution space. Although evolutionary algorithms can explore promising areas of the solution space, they are not able to locate global optimum efficiently. In this paper, we present a new Memetic Algorithm (MA)-based Extreme Learning Machine (M-ELM for short). M-ELM embeds the local search strategy into the global optimization framework to obtain optimal network parameters. Experiments and comparisons on 46 UCI data sets validate the performance of M-ELM. The corresponding results demonstrate that M-ELM significantly outperforms state-of-the-art ELM algorithms.