NEURAL NET SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS

THE INTEREST IN BUILDING INTELLIGENT MACHINES IS A CENTURIES OLD GOAL OF MANKIND. SERIOUS RESEARCH INTO BUILDING INTELLIGENT MACHINES BEGAN IN THE EARLY PART OF THIS CENTURY. WHILE NEURAL NETWORKS HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR SEVERAL DECADES, IT HAS ONLY BEEN IN THIS DECADE, IN PARTICULAR, THE LAST 2 YEARS, THAT SIGNIFICANT RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN PRODUCED. THIS RESEARCH HAS SPAWNED THE CREATION OF MANY NEW SOFTWARE TOOLS TO MODEL NEURAL NETWORK ARCHITECTURES AND CAPABILITIES. THE AVAILABILITY OF THESE COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PACKAGES WILL ALLOW NEURAL NETWORK RESEARCH AND PROTOTYPING TO BE DONE MORE RAPIDLY AND ALLOW RESEARCHERS TO CONCENTRATE ON HOW TO USE NEURAL NETWORKS RATHER THAN HOW TO CODE A SIMULATION. THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THE PHASE I EFFORT IS THE DETERMINATION OF THE MATURITY OF CURRENTLY AVAILABLE COMMERCIAL NEURAL NETWORK SOFTWARE TOOLS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PLAN FOR USING THESE TOOLS IN CONJUNCTION WITH AVAILABLE EXPERT SYSTEM SOFTWARE. SPECIFICALLY, WE WILL SURVEY AND EVALUATE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE COMMERCIAL NEURAL NETWORK SOFTWARE SIMULATION PACKAGES, SELECT NEURAL NETWORK PACKAGES FOR EVALUATION, CHOOSE THREE NAVAL APPLICATIONS FOR SOLUTION BY A NEURAL NETWORK/EXPERT SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT, AND, FINALLY, SPECIFY THE STEPS NECESSARY TO IMPLEMENT EACH APPLICATION USING NEURAL NETWORK AND EXPERT SYSTEM SOFTWARE.