Enhanced neural architecture search using super learner and ensemble approaches

Neural networks, and in particular Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), are often optimized using default parameters. Neural Architecture Search (NAS) enables multiple architectures to be evaluated prior to selection of the optimal architecture. A system integrating open-source tools for Neural Architecture Search (OpenNAS) of image classification problems has been developed and made available to the open-source community. OpenNAS takes any dataset of grayscale, or RGB images, and generates the optimal CNN architecture. The training and optimization of neural networks, using super learner and ensemble approaches, is explored in this research. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and pretrained models serve as base learners for network ensembles. Meta learner algorithms are subsequently applied to these base learners and the ensemble performance on image classification problems is evaluated. Our results show that a stacked generalization ensemble of heterogeneous models is the most effective approach to image classification within OpenNAS