Physics-based polynomial neural networks for one-shot learning of dynamical systems from one or a few samples

This paper discusses an approach for incorporating prior physical knowledge into the neural network to improve data efficiency and the generalization of predictive models. If the dynamics of a system approximately follows a given differential equation, the Taylor mapping method can be used to initialize the weights of a polynomial neural network. This allows the fine-tuning of the model from one training sample of real system dynamics. The paper describes practical results on real experiments with both a simple pendulum and one of the largest worldwide X-ray source. It is demonstrated in practice that the proposed approach allows recovering complex physics from noisy, limited, and partial observations and provides meaningful predictions for previously unseen inputs. The approach mainly targets the learning of physical systems when state-of-the-art models are difficult to apply given the lack of training data.

Polynomial Neural Networks and Taylor maps for Dynamical Systems Simulation and Learning

The connection of Taylor maps and polynomial neural networks (PNN) to solve ordinary differential equations (ODEs) numerically is considered. Having the system of ODEs, it is possible to calculate weights of PNN that simulates the dynamics of these equations. It is shown that proposed PNN architecture can provide better accuracy with less computational time in comparison with traditional numerical solvers. Moreover, neural network derived from the ODEs can be used for simulation of system dynamics with different initial conditions, but without training procedure. On the other hand, if the equations are unknown, the weights of the PNN can be fitted in a data-driven way. In the paper we describe the connection of PNN with differential equations in a theoretical way along with the examples for both dynamics simulation and learning with data.