skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Performance Benchmarking of Data Augmentation and Deep Learning for Tornado Prediction
Predicting violent storms and dangerous weather conditions with current models can take a long time due to the immense complexity associated with weather simulation. Machine learning has the potential to classify tornadic weather patterns much more rapidly, thus allowing for more timely alerts to the public. To deal with class imbalance challenges in machine learning, different data augmentation approaches have been proposed. In this work, we examine the wall time difference between live data augmentation methods versus the use of preaugmented data when they are used in a convolutional neural network based training for tornado prediction. We also compare CPU and GPU based training over varying sizes of augmented data sets. Additionally we examine what impact varying the number of GPUs used for training will produce given a convolutional neural network.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1726023 1730250
PAR ID:
10179455
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data)
Page Range / eLocation ID:
3607 to 3615
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Non-recurring traffic congestion is caused by temporary disruptions, such as accidents, sports games, adverse weather, etc. We use data related to real-time traffic speed, jam factors (a traffic congestion indicator), and events collected over a year from Nashville, TN to train a multi-layered deep neural network. The traffic dataset contains over 900 million data records. The network is thereafter used to classify the real-time data and identify anomalous operations. Compared with traditional approaches of using statistical or machine learning techniques, our model reaches an accuracy of 98.73 percent when identifying traffic congestion caused by football games. Our approach first encodes the traffic across a region as a scaled image. After that the image data from different timestamps is fused with event- and time-related data. Then a crossover operator is used as a data augmentation method to generate training datasets with more balanced classes. Finally, we use the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to tune the sensitivity of the classifier. We present the analysis of the training time and the inference time separately. 
    more » « less
  2. Abstract Machine learning can be used to automate common or time-consuming engineering tasks for which sufficient data already exist. For instance, design repositories can be used to train deep learning algorithms to assess component manufacturability; however, methods to determine the suitability of a design repository for use with machine learning do not exist. We provide an initial investigation toward identifying such a method using “artificial” design repositories to experimentally test the extent to which altering properties of the dataset impacts the assessment precision and generalizability of neural networks trained on the data. For this experiment, we use a 3D convolutional neural network to estimate quantitative manufacturing metrics directly from voxel-based component geometries. Additive manufacturing (AM) is used as a case study because of the recent growth of AM-focused design repositories such as GrabCAD and Thingiverse that are readily accessible online. In this study, we focus only on material extrusion, the dominant consumer AM process, and investigate three AM build metrics: (1) part mass, (2) support material mass, and (3) build time. Additionally, we compare the convolutional neural network accuracy to that of a baseline multiple linear regression model. Our results suggest that training on design repositories with less standardized orientation and position resulted in more accurate trained neural networks and that orientation-dependent metrics were harder to estimate than orientation-independent metrics. Furthermore, the convolutional neural network was more accurate than the baseline linear regression model for all build metrics. 
    more » « less
  3. null (Ed.)
    Modern digital manufacturing processes, such as additive manufacturing, are cyber-physical in nature and utilize complex, process-specific simulations for both design and manufacturing. Although computational simulations can be used to optimize these complex processes, they can take hours or days--an unreasonable cost for engineering teams leveraging iterative design processes. Hence, more rapid computational methods are necessary in areas where computation time presents a limiting factor. When existing data from historical examples is plentiful and reliable, supervised machine learning can be used to create surrogate models that can be evaluated orders of magnitude more rapidly than comparable finite element approaches. However, for applications that necessitate computationally- intensive simulations, even generating the training data necessary to train a supervised machine learning model can pose a significant barrier. Unsupervised methods, such as physics- informed neural networks, offer a shortcut in cases where training data is scarce or prohibitive. These novel neural networks are trained without the use of potentially expensive labels. Instead, physical principles are encoded directly into the loss function. This method substantially reduces the time required to develop a training dataset, while still achieving the evaluation speed that is typical of supervised machine learning surrogate models. We propose a new method for stochastically training and testing a convolutional physics-informed neural network using the transient 3D heat equation- to model temperature throughout a solid object over time. We demonstrate this approach by applying it to a transient thermal analysis model of the powder bed fusion manufacturing process. 
    more » « less
  4. The widespread growth of additive manufacturing, a field with a complex informatic “digital thread”, has helped fuel the creation of design repositories, where multiple users can upload distribute, and download a variety of candidate designs for a variety of situations. Additionally, advancements in additive manufacturing process development, design frameworks, and simulation are increasing what is possible to fabricate with AM, further growing the richness of such repositories. Machine learning offers new opportunities to combine these design repository components’ rich geometric data with their associated process and performance data to train predictive models capable of automatically assessing build metrics related to AM part manufacturability. Although design repositories that can be used to train these machine learning constructs are expanding, our understanding of what makes a particular design repository useful as a machine learning training dataset is minimal. In this study we use a metamodel to predict the extent to which individual design repositories can train accurate convolutional neural networks. To facilitate the creation and refinement of this metamodel, we constructed a large artificial design repository, and subsequently split it into sub-repositories. We then analyzed metadata regarding the size, complexity, and diversity of the sub-repositories for use as independent variables predicting accuracy and the required training computational effort for training convolutional neural networks. The networks each predict one of three additive manufacturing build metrics: (1) part mass, (2) support material mass, and (3) build time. Our results suggest that metamodels predicting the convolutional neural network coefficient of determination, as opposed to computational effort, were most accurate. Moreover, the size of a design repository, the average complexity of its constituent designs, and the average and spread of design spatial diversity were the best predictors of convolutional neural network accuracy. 
    more » « less
  5. Abstract Modern data mining techniques using machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms have been shown to excel in the regression-based task of materials property prediction using various materials representations. In an attempt to improve the predictive performance of the deep neural network model, researchers have tried to add more layers as well as develop new architectural components to create sophisticated and deep neural network models that can aid in the training process and improve the predictive ability of the final model. However, usually, these modifications require a lot of computational resources, thereby further increasing the already large model training time, which is often not feasible, thereby limiting usage for most researchers. In this paper, we study and propose a deep neural network framework for regression-based problems comprising of fully connected layers that can work with any numerical vector-based materials representations as model input. We present a novel deep regression neural network, iBRNet, with branched skip connections and multiple schedulers, which can reduce the number of parameters used to construct the model, improve the accuracy, and decrease the training time of the predictive model. We perform the model training using composition-based numerical vectors representing the elemental fractions of the respective materials and compare their performance against other traditional ML and several known DL architectures. Using multiple datasets with varying data sizes for training and testing, We show that the proposed iBRNet models outperform the state-of-the-art ML and DL models for all data sizes. We also show that the branched structure and usage of multiple schedulers lead to fewer parameters and faster model training time with better convergence than other neural networks. Scientific contribution: The combination of multiple callback functions in deep neural networks minimizes training time and maximizes accuracy in a controlled computational environment with parametric constraints for the task of materials property prediction. 
    more » « less