Lite-RVFL: A Lightweight Random Vector Functional-Link Neural Network for Learning Under Concept Drift
This addresses the challenge of maintaining reliability in real-time applications for machine learning practitioners, though it is incremental as it builds on existing RVFL methods.
The paper tackles the problem of concept drift in online learning by proposing Lite-RVFL, a lightweight neural network that adapts without drift detection or retraining, achieving efficient adaptation in a real-world safety assessment task.
The change in data distribution over time, also known as concept drift, poses a significant challenge to the reliability of online learning methods. Existing methods typically require model retraining or drift detection, both of which demand high computational costs and are often unsuitable for real-time applications. To address these limitations, a lightweight, fast and efficient random vector functional-link network termed Lite-RVFL is proposed, capable of adapting to concept drift without drift detection and retraining. Lite-RVFL introduces a novel objective function that assigns weights exponentially increasing to new samples, thereby emphasizing recent data and enabling timely adaptation. Theoretical analysis confirms the feasibility of this objective function for drift adaptation, and an efficient incremental update rule is derived. Experimental results on a real-world safety assessment task validate the efficiency, effectiveness in adapting to drift, and potential to capture temporal patterns of Lite-RVFL. The source code is available at https://github.com/songqiaohu/Lite-RVFL.