General regression neural network in energy cost analysis

Previous researches on energy cost evaluation in industrial processes have been led by the authors using variance analysis techniques, MANOVA. The results were satisfactory and the codes developed using this techniques on process computers were capable to take care of various factors. Nevertheless either many hypothesis had to be made on the analytical form of the regression surfaces, or a pure MANOVA model had to be used, loosing information on the possible interpolation. Moreover, regression approach was hardly extensible to on-line acquisition of new data. In order to achieve this goal and to simplify the processing of data, we adopted neural networks techniques. We tested various types of networks and we found empirical evidence that the General Regression Neural Networks structure (GRNN) could behave consistently better than back-propagation algorithms