Neuron Model :: Perceptrons (Neural Network Toolbox™)

Neuron Model

A perceptron neuron, which uses the hard-limit transfer function hardlim, is shown below.

Each external input is weighted with an appropriate weight w_1j, and the sum of the weighted inputs is sent to the hard-limit transfer function, which also has an input of 1 transmitted to it through the bias. The hard-limit transfer function, which returns a 0 or a 1, is shown below.

The perceptron neuron produces a 1 if the net input into the transfer function is equal to or greater than 0; otherwise it produces a 0.

The hard-limit transfer function gives a perceptron the ability to classify input vectors by dividing the input space into two regions. Specifically, outputs will be 0 if the net input n is less than 0, or 1 if the net input n is 0 or greater. The following figure show the input space of a two-input hard limit neuron with the weights and a bias .

Two classification regions are formed by the decision boundary line L at . This line is perpendicular to the weight matrix W and shifted according to the bias b. Input vectors above and to the left of the line L will result in a net input greater than 0 and, therefore, cause the hard-limit neuron to output a 1. Input vectors below and to the right of the line L cause the neuron to output 0. You can pick weight and bias values to orient and move the dividing line so as to classify the input space as desired.

Hard-limit neurons without a bias will always have a classification line going through the origin. Adding a bias allows the neuron to solve problems where the two sets of input vectors are not located on different sides of the origin. The bias allows the decision boundary to be shifted away from the origin, as shown in the plot above.

You might want to run the demonstration program nnd4db. With it you can move a decision boundary around, pick new inputs to classify, and see how the repeated application of the learning rule yields a network that does classify the input vectors properly.

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Introduction Perceptron Architecture

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