Enhancing Physics-Informed Neural Networks with a Hybrid Parallel Kolmogorov-Arnold and MLP Architecture
This work addresses computational science and engineering problems involving PDEs, offering a scalable tool, though it appears incremental as it combines existing methods.
The paper tackles the challenge of balancing accuracy and computational efficiency in physics-informed neural networks by proposing a hybrid architecture that integrates parallelized Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KAN) and Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLP). The result is a marked decrease in loss values, reducing relative error by two orders of magnitude compared to standalone models.
Neural networks have emerged as powerful tools for modeling complex physical systems, yet balancing high accuracy with computational efficiency remains a critical challenge in their convergence behavior. In this work, we propose the Hybrid Parallel Kolmogorov-Arnold Network (KAN) and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) Physics-Informed Neural Network (HPKM-PINN), a novel architecture that synergistically integrates parallelized KAN and MLP branches within a unified PINN framework. The HPKM-PINN introduces a scaling factor ξ, to optimally balance the complementary strengths of KAN's interpretable function approximation and MLP's nonlinear feature learning, thereby enhancing predictive performance through a weighted fusion of their outputs. Through systematic numerical evaluations, we elucidate the impact of the scaling factor ξ on the model's performance in both function approximation and partial differential equation (PDE) solving tasks. Benchmark experiments across canonical PDEs, such as the Poisson and Advection equations, demonstrate that HPKM-PINN achieves a marked decrease in loss values (reducing relative error by two orders of magnitude) compared to standalone KAN or MLP models. Furthermore, the framework exhibits numerical stability and robustness when applied to various physical systems. These findings highlight the HPKM-PINN's ability to leverage KAN's interpretability and MLP's expressivity, positioning it as a versatile and scalable tool for solving complex PDE-driven problems in computational science and engineering.