Continual learning classification method for time-varying data space based on artificial immune system

Abstract

Classification methods play an important role in many fields. However, they cannot effectively classify the samples from sample spaces that are varying with time, for they lack continual learning ability. A continual learning classification method for time-varying data space based on artificial immune system, CLCMTVD, is proposed. It is inspired by the intelligent mechanism that memory cells of the biological immune system can recognize and eliminate previous invaders when they attack again very fast and more efficiently, and these memory cells can evolve with the evolution of previous invaders. Memory cells were continuously updated by learning testing data during the testing stage, thus realize the self-improvement of classification performance. CLCMTVD changes a linearly inseparable spatial problem into many classification problems of several different times, and it degenerates into a common supervised learning classification method when all data independent of time. To assess the performance and possible advantages of CLCMTVD, the experiments on well-known datasets from UCI repository, synthetic data and XJTU-SY rolling element bearing accelerated life test datasets were performed. Results show that CLCMTVD has better classification performance for time-invariant data, and outperforms the other methods for time-varying data space.