Types of Neural Networks

Last Updated : 27 May, 2024

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Artificial neural networks are a kind of machine learning algorithms that are created
to reproduce the functions of the biological neural systems. Amongst which,
networks like those which are a collection of interconnected nodes or neurons are
the most prominent, which are organized into layers.In this article, we will discuss
about the types of neural networks.
What are Neural Networks?
Neural networks are computational models that mimic the way biological neural
networks in the human brain process information. They consist of layers of neurons
that transform the input data into meaningful outputs through a series of
mathematical operations.
Table of Content
 What are Neural Networks?
 List of types of neural networks
 Feedforward Neural Networks
 Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)
 Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN)
 Long Short-Term Memory Networks (LSTM)
 Gated Recurrent Units (GRU)
 Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFN)
 Self-Organizing Maps (SOM)
 Deep Belief Networks (DBN)
 Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN)
 Autoencoders (AE)
 Siamese Neural Networks
 Capsule Networks (CapsNet)
 Transformer Networks
 Spiking Neural Networks (SNN)
  Applications of Neural Networks
Feedforward Neural Networks
 Definition: Feedforward neural networks are a form of artificial neural
network where without forming any cycles between layers or nodes means
inputs can pass data through those nodes within the hidden level to the
output nodes.
 Architecture: Made up of layers with unidirectional flow of data (from input
through hidden and the output layer).
 Training: Backpropagation is often used during training for the main aim of
reducing the prediction errors.
 Applications: In visual and voice recognition, NLP, financial forecasting, and
recommending systems.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)

 Definition: The convolutional neural networks structure is focused on
processing the grid type data like images and videos by using convolutional
layers filtering driving the patterns and spatial hierarchies.
 Key Components: Utilizing convolutional layers, pooling layers and fully
connected layers.
 Applications: Used for classification of images, object detection, medical
imaging analyzes, autonomous driving and visualization in augmented reality.
Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN)
 Definition: Recurrent neural network handles sequential data in which the
current output is a result of previous inputs by looping over themselves to
hold internal state (memory).
 Architecture: Contains recurrent connections that enable feedback loops for
processing sequences.
 Challenges: Problems such as vanishing gradients become apparent since
they limit the mode detectors’ ability to comprehensively capture
interdependence on a long scale.
 Applications: Language translation, open-ended text classification, ones to
ones interaction, and time series prediction are its applications.

Long Short-Term Memory Networks (LSTM)

 Definition: LSTM networks, as a recurrent neural network variant, exhibit
memory cells to solve the disappearing gradient issue and keep large ranges
of information in their memory.
 Key Features: Capture memory cells in pass information flowing and
graduate greediness issue.
 Applications: Value of RNNs is in terms of importing long-term memory into
the model e.g., language translation, and time-series forecasting.
Gated Recurrent Units (GRU)
 Definition: GRU is the second usual variant of RNNs which is working on
gating mechanism just like LSTM but with little parameter.
 Advantages: Vanishing gradient issue is addressed and it is compute-
efficient than LSTM.
 Applications: LSTM is also involved in tasks that can be categorized as
similar to speech recognition and text monitoring.

Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFN)

 Definition: The radial basis function (RBF) networks can be regarded as
models which define radial basis functions that are very useful in the function
 approximation and classification approaches, being useful in complex input-
output data modelling.
 Applications: It includes regression, pattern recognition, and system control
methods for fast-tracking.

Self-Organizing Maps (SOM)

 Definition: Self-Organizing Maps are unsupervised neural networks; these
networks are used for unsupervised cluster generation based on the retaining
of topological features of the high dimensional data from an upper
dimensional source, transformed into low dimensional form of output data.
 Features: Design methods that reduces the dimension of data from the high
dimension into a low dimension without loss of the underlying geometry of
the data.
 Applications: Visualizing data, discovering customers segments, locating
anomalies; and selecting needed features.
Deep Belief Networks (DBN)
 Definition: The architecture of the Deep Belief Networks is built on many
stochastic, latent variables that are used for both deep supervised and
unsupervised tasks such as nonlinear feature learning and mid dimensional
representation.
 Function: If you are looking for the most effective architecture of data that
can be learned via classification, this algorithm clearly emerges as the
winner.
 Applications: Image and voice recognition, natural language understanding,
and smart devices as recommendations systems.
Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN)
 Definition: Generative Adversarial Networks has made up of of two neural
networks, the generator and discriminator, which compete against each
other. The generator creates a fake generated data, and the discriminator
learns to differentiate the real from and fake data.
 Working Principle: Generator evolves after each iteration while the fake
data being generated. This simultaneously makes the discriminator more
discriminating as it determines whether the components are real or
generated.
 Applications: They have proved useful not only for pattern generation but
also data augmentation, style transfer, and learning without any supervision.
Autoencoders (AE)
 Definition: Autoencoders are feedforward networks (ANNs) that are trained
to acquire the most helpful presentations of the information through the
process of re-coding the input data. The encoder is pinpointed to precisely
map the input into the legal latent space representation, while the decoder
does the opposite, decoding the space from this representation.
 Functionality: Help in techniques like dimensionality reduction, information
extraction, noise removal, and generative modelling the images become
comprehensible.
 Types: Variants include undercomplete, overcomplete, and variational
autoencoders.
Siamese Neural Networks
 Definition: Siamese Neural Network work with networks of the same
structure and an identical architecture. Comparison is being made via a
similarity metric that can tell the degree of resemblance the two networks
have.
 Applications: Face recognition as the signature, retrieval of information,
image similarity comparison and category tasks.
Capsule Networks (CapsNet)
 Definition: The layers of Capsule Networks do not only incorporate
localization relations of data but allows multilevel structure by passing the
information from lower convolutional layers to higher. They use cyclicals to
the items and their bodies too, of course, they do not do that at the same
time.
 Applications: Image classification, object detection and scene
understanding via the immense visual data exposure.
Transformer Networks
 Definition: The Transformer Networks do this by way of self-attention
mechanism which results into a parallel process used for making the
tokenization inputs faster and thus improved capturing of long range
dependencies.
 Key Features: Provides better performance than any of the other models
due to their capability to process natural language sufficiently, and handle
tasks related to machine translation, generating text, and document
summarization.
  Applications: The application of this technology had got more popular,
specially in language understanding tasks and image and audio data
processing applications of this time and more similar tasks.

Spiking Neural Networks (SNN)

 Definition: Main thing related with Spiking Neural Networks is the brain
functionality which is processed by action potentials (spikes) in biological
neurons in the same way. These are the key factors of “neuromorphic”
technology which perform the deep learning and avoid another type of
processing as well.
 Applications: Neuromorphic processes, learning and computation in spiro-
neural computing, cognitive processes modeling, and mind-related computing
are also carried out with this.
Applications of Neural Networks
The uses of neural networks are diverse and cut across many distinct industries and
domains; processes and innovations are being transformed and even revolutionized
by this advancement in technology.
 Healthcare: Neural networks play a critical role in medical image analysis,
disease diagnosis, personalized treatment plans, drug discovery and
healthcare management systems.
 Finance: They have a very strong influence on algorithmic trading, fraud
detection, credit scoring, risk management and portfolio optimization.
 Entertainment: Neural networks are allowing development of
recommendation systems for movies, music, books and character animation
as well as virtual reality experiences.
 Manufacturing: They innovate in supply chain management especially in
optimizing it, predictive maintenance, quality control processes and industrial
automation.
 Transportation: The human brain is incorporated into the auto-piloted cars
for the purpose of perception, making decisions, and navigation.
  Environmental Sciences: They help construct climate models, satellite
monitoring, and ecological observation.
A neural network is a basic backbone of modern artificial intelligence that changes
the way machines learn from data and carry out sophisticated tasks that were once
considered to be human. Research technology is developing everyday, also
computational resources are getting more readily available on daily basis.
Consequently, neural networks are constantly evolving with innovation in mind,
thus, transforming industries. The upcoming age will present an integration of smart
systems into our daily living that will unveil a technology-oriented world, leading to
many possibilities among healthcare, finance, entertainment, manufacturing, and
transportation, and others.