Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x
DOI 10.1007/s12206-014-0535-2

Artificial neural network based on genetic algorithm for emissions prediction of

a SI gasoline engine
Jos D. Martnez-Morales1,*, Elvia R. Palacios-Hernndez2 and Gerardo A. Velzquez-Carrillo3
1
Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi 78290, Mexico
2
Faculty of Science, Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi 78290, Mexico
3
Mechatronics Department, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico D. F. 01389, Mexico

(Manuscript Received October 28, 2013; Revised January 20, 2014; Accepted February 24, 2014)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abstract

This paper proposes a hybrid learning of artificial neural network (ANN) with the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-
II) to improve accuracy in order to predict the exhaust emissions of a four stroke spark ignition (SI) engine. In the proposed approach, the
genetic algorithm (GA) determines initial weights of local linear model tree (LOLIMOT) neural networks. A multi-objective optimiza-
tion problem is determined. A sensitivity analysis is performed on NSGA-II parameters in order to provide better solutions along the
optimal Pareto front. Then, a fuzzy decision maker and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) are
employed to select compromised solutions among the obtained Pareto solutions. The LOLIMOT-GA responses are compared with the
provided by radial basis function (RBF) and multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural networks in terms of correlation coefficient R2.
Keywords: Exhaust emissions of engine; Artificial neural networks; Genetic algorithm; Multi-objective optimization
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and compressed natural gas. Kim and Sung [4] developed a

1. Introduction
multidimensional model in order to predict NO and soot emis-
Calibration engineers frequently want to know the re- sions and to investigate the effects of exhaust gas recirculation
sponses of an internal combustion engine for the entire range of a diesel engine. In their study, computation is performed by
of operating conditions in order to adjust the value of control a KIVA-3V code. Rakopoulos et al. [5] applied multi-zone
parameters of the electronic control system to improve per- modeling to explain responses such as NO and soot formation
formance and reduce exhaust emissions [1]. However, testing of a direct injection (DI) diesel engine fuelled with blends of
the engine for the complete range of operating conditions ethanol and diesel. However, such simulations can take some
could be time-consuming and costly. To overcome these hours to days, depending on the complexity of the chemistry
drawbacks, calibration of electronic control system can be model.
carried out with the help of a model of engine responses. As alternative, artificial neural networks (ANN) can be used
Therefore, a model to predict engine responses must be devel- to predict emissions for most of engine operating conditions
oped, establishing the relationship between control parameters from experimental data. Essentially, the processing elements
as injected fuel mass flow, injection timing, ignition time, of a neural network are analogous to the neurons in the brain,
among others, which have influence on consumption, emis- which consist of many computational elements arranged in
sions and drivability [2]. Models used in engine calibration several layers [6]. The structure of ANN enables them to find
may be split into two main groups, namely phenomenological highly nonlinear relationships, and have the ability to predict
and empirical models. Although several phenomenological cases that are not included in the training dataset. These abili-
models have been proposed [3-5], engine responses are diffi- ties make ANN suitable to solve complex nonlinear problems,
cult to identify using physical principles only. Mehrnoosh et al. including pollutant modeling applications in combustion en-
[3] presented a thermodynamic model to predict fuel con- gines [7-12]. Ghazikhani and Mirzaii [7] used multilayer per-
sumption, power and emission concentrations of CO2, CO, ceptron (MLP) neural networks to predict soot emission of a
UHC and NO of spark ignition (SI) engine fuelled by gasoline waste-gated turbo-charged DI diesel engine taking into ac-
*
count as input parameters the inlet manifold pressure, inlet
Corresponding author. Tel.: +52 4448173381, Fax.: +52 4448173381
E-mail address: jdaniel.martinez@alumnos.uaslp.edu.mx
manifold temperature, inlet air mass flow rate, fuel consump-

Recommended by Associate Editor Jeong Park tion, engine torque, and speed. In their study, ANN can predict
KSME & Springer 2014
2418 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427
emission with a correlation coefficient R2 of 0.9998. Cay et al.
[8] used ANN with four different training algorithms to pre-
dict break specific fuel consumption (BSFC), air fuel ratio
(AFR), CO and HC emissions of an engine fuelled with
blends of gasoline and methanol. They consider the fuel type,
torque, engine speed and fuel flow as inputs in the output layer
of the network. In their study, ANN model is able to predict
the engine performance and emissions with correlation coeffi-
cients of 0.9986, 0.9776, 0.9983 and 0.9960 for the BSFC, CO,
HC and AFR for testing data, respectively. Kiani et al. [9]
used ANN with three input parameters in order to predict six
engine responses, including exhaust emissions of a SI engine
fuelled with ethanol and gasoline. Their model is able to pre-
dict CO2, CO, HC and NOx with correlation coefficients of
0.96, 0.98, 0.90 and 0.71, respectively. Ismail et al. [10] de-
veloped a MLP neural network to modeling nine different
engine responses, as CO, CO2, NO, UHC, between others,
from a light-duty diesel engine powered using blends of vari-
ous biodiesel fuels with conventional fossil diesel. They con-
sidered four engine control parameters identified as model
inputs named engine speed, output torque, fuel flow rate and
the type of fuel blend. In their study, optimum number of neu-
rons in the hidden layer of ANN was found to be 10 based on
mean square error of the model. In Ref. [11], Martnez et al.
used the local linear model tree (LOLIMOT) neural network,
with three units in the input layer to predict only CO and HC
emissions of a gasoline engine. They employed the root mean
square error (RMSE) performance criterion to determine the
best network architecture by a trial and error approach. Et-
ghani et al. [12] used a MLP network to predict brake power,
BSFC and emissions as PM, NOx, CO and CO2 of a diesel
engine. Then, they employed a modified NSGA-II to optimize
these six engine responses as objectives. They also used the
technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution
(TOPSIS) to find the best compromised solution from the
Pareto front. In their study, employed biodiesel blends per-
centage and engine speed as inputs to MLP network. They
found the best network architecture by using performance
criteria as correlation coefficient, mean absolute percentage
error (MAPE) and RMSE. On the other hand, the key problem
with learning algorithms for ANN as back propagation (BP) is
the choice of a suitable number of neurons in the hidden layer
and a good initial weighting configuration. Hence, evolution-
ary algorithms for ANN training help to traditional learning
algorithms to get out of local minimum, therefore improving
the accuracy of the learning model based on objectives as
model complexity and error measures [13-16]. Qasem et al.
[14] used three Pareto-based multi-objective algorithms for
the design of radial basis function (RBF) networks with good
generalization ability and simple network structure. Ferreira
and Ruano [15] studied the multi-objective optimization for
systems identification using RBF network while optimizing
the model structures in acceptable computing time.
The aim of this study is to develop neural network models
to predict CO, HC and NOx exhaust emissions of a four stroke
Table 1. Specifications of the test engine.
Characteristic Value
Maximum power 74.59 kW/5600 rpm
Displacement 1.597 L
Stroke 81.5 mm
Compression ratio 9.4:1
Injection type Sequential
Maximum torque 138 Nm/ 300 rpm
SI gasoline engine, taken into account six engine control pa-
rameters as inputs to the model, named as the engine speed,
angle of the admission throttle valve, injected fuel mass flow,
injection time, ignition time and the intake manifold absolute
pressure. In order to improve prediction accuracy, the nondo-
minated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) is incorpo-
rated in the training phase of a LOLIMOT network, involving
three objectives: the RMSE, the mean relative error (MRE) in
percentage and the sum of squared weights, in order to find a
tradeoff between network complexity and error measure. Fur-
thermore, a sensitivity analysis on NSGA-II parameters has
been performed in order to determine parameter values that
provide better distribution of solutions along the Pareto front.
Then, a fuzzy decision maker and a multiple attribute decision
making (MADM) method are applied to choose compromised
solutions in the Pareto front to be implemented in the
LOLIMOT-GA model. The prediction of engine emissions by
the proposed approach is compared in terms of correlation
coefficient R2 with the RBF and MLP neural networks.
2. Experimental setup
The experiments were carried out on a four stroke, SI gaso-
line engine (Chevrolet, Z16SE2005). The engine has a 1.597
L cylinder volume and compression ratio of 9.4:1. Specifica-
tions of the test engine are shown in Table 1. In this study,
exhaust emissions of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxides and
nitrogen oxides are measured in static mode for 60 operating
conditions defined by engine speeds (neng) in the range 1500 to
4000 rpm, at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of opening of the
admission throttle valve (th). To establish the engine speed,
the shaft of the test engine is coupled to a hydraulic dyna-
mometer (SuperFlow, SF-902). The dynamometer provides
load to the engine by a hydraulic brake. The dynamometer has
an electrically controlled throttle actuator to vary the angle of
the throttle valve. The schematic view with sensor locations of
the experimental apparatus is shown in Fig. 1.
Emissions of CO, HC, and NOx are measured with a gas
analyzer (InfraredIndustries, FGA4000XDS) installed on the
exhaust port, with accuracy of 0.1% for each emission. The
analyzer is calibrated with standard gases before the experi-
ments. The ignition timing advance, (ign) is acquired with a
crankshaft position sensor. This sensor indicates when a notch
on the crankshaft goes by and sends a pulse to the electronic
 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427 2419

Fig. 1. Schematic view of the test equipments.

Fig. 2. Input datasets for training and testing ANN models: (a) engine
speed; (b) angle of the admission throttle valve; (c) ignition angle; (d)
control unit (ECU). As it is referenced to the top dead point of
injection time; (e) intake manifold absolute pressure; (f) injected fuel
the piston number 1, is possible to calculate the angular posi- mass flow.
tion of the crankshaft. The intake manifold absolute pressure
(IMAP) is obtained by a manifold air pressure (MAP) sensor.
The output from this sensor is directly wired into the ECU. A
fuel canister is used to obtain the injected fuel mass flow
(mfuel) of the engine in a range from 2.519 10-3 to
34.019 10-3 kg/s. Additionally, it is acquired the time of the
open state of an injector (tinj) by an oscilloscope (Tektronix, (a)
TDS2001C). Engine parameters such as engine speed, ignition
time and IMAP are directly obtained from the on-board diag-
nostics II (OBD-II) system and from the dynamometer PC
(Wyndyn software). Measurements are performed with the
engine operating at steady state. Once the desired throttle posi-
tion is set and held constant, the vehicle speed is then con-
trolled and increased using the dynamometer control system. (b)
The main objective of these tests is to acquire the engine pa-
rameters over a wide range of speeds and angles of the throttle
valve. Hence, data diversification can be achieved for training
and testing ANN. In Figs. 2 and 3 are shown the input and the
output datasets for each operating parameter and engine emis-
sion, respectively. All datasets are divided into a training (40
datasets) used to train LOLIMOT-GA network in order to get (c)
the Pareto optimal solutions (weights). The reminding 20 da- Fig. 3. Output datasets for training and testing ANN models: (a) CO;
tasets are used to test LOLIMOT-GA network. (b) HC; (c) NOx.

3. Neural network models of engine exhaust emissions

where x are the inputs of the network, c are the centers and
3.1 Radial basis function neural network
are the widths of the radial functions. The RBF network uses a
A RBF neural network consists of an input layer determined sum of products to compute the outputs. The prediction of a
by the inputs to the network. A hidden layer applies a non- RBF neural network with Q neurons in the hidden layer is
linear transformation to inputs. And the output layer which given by
applies a linear transformation to produce the network output.
Q
The activation function is a radial basis function defined as
2
y pred = i =1
wiji ( x) + q (2)
- x-c
j ( x) = exp (1)
2s 2 where wi denotes the ith weight for each neuron in the hidden
2420 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427

layer and is the threshold of the output neuron. unit to the ith LLM. The validity function of the ith hidden
neuron corresponds to standard Gaussian function defined as
3.2 Multilayer perceptron neural network
mi ( x )
The MLP neural network used in this work consists of an fi ( x) = M
(9)
input layer, one hidden layer with N neurons and one output j =1
m j ( x)
layer, the activation of the ith hidden neuron with i = 1,2,...,N,
is calculated as [6] where
v
ui = j =1
wij x j + qi (3)
m j ( x) =
v
exp
-( xi - cij ) 2
. (10)
i =1
2s ij2
where wij is the weight connecting the jth input unit to the ith
hidden neuron, i is the bias of the ith hidden neuron and xj is The centers cij and standard deviations ij define Gaussian
the jth input variable with j = 1,2,...,v. The output of the ith functions. LOLIMOT is an incremental construction algo-
hidden neuron is defined as rithm that partitions the input space by dividing it with or-
thogonal axes. The linear parameters wij in Eq. (8) of every
v LLM, are adapted by an estimation method based on the re-
yi = y i (ui ) = y i wij xi + qi (4)
j =1 cursive weighted least squares (RWLS) with a learning factor
. For the ith LLM, it is calculated a new estimate of the pa-
where y i (ui ) is the activation function of the ith hidden neu- rameter wi(k) in the kth iteration as [18]
ron. Therefore, the output values of the output neuron are giv-
en by wi (k + 1) = wi (k ) + g i (k + 1)ei (k + 1) (11)
ei (k + 1) = y (k + 1) - x% (k + 1) wi (k )
T
(12)
N
y pred = y mi yi + b (5) 1
i =1 g i (k + 1) = Pi (k ) x% (k + 1) (13)
l
+ x% T (k + 1) Pi (k ) x% (k + 1)
fi ( x)
where mi is the weight connecting the ith hidden neuron to the 1
output neuron, and b is the threshold of the output neuron. The Pi (k + 1) = ( I - g i (k + 1) x% T (k + 1)) Pi (k ) (14)
l
activation function used for this neural network is Log-
Sigmoid. Therefore the output of MLP network is calculated
where Pi(k+1) is a covariance matrix, ei(k+1) is the error be-
as follows
tween the predicted and the real output, fi ( x) provides the
weighting of the input data with the value of the validity func-
1
y pred = N
. (6) tion and x% = [x1, , xv 1]T, is the new input vector that con-
1 + exp
- i=1 mi yi + b tains a 1 as the final position value with the purpose of adjust-
ing the thresholds wi0.
3.3 Local linear model tree neural network In this work, the structure of the LOLIMOT network is
fixed previously, and then NSGA-II is employed to evolve
This type of network is based on the sum of products of M good initial weights for the so called LOLIMOT-GA network,
weighted local linear models (LLM) with validity functions in order to provide better accuracy between predicted and
fi . The prediction of a LOLIMOT network is calculated as measured engine emissions.
follows [17]

M
4. Multi-objective optimization problem
y pred = i =1
yLLM i ( x)fi ( x) (7)
The multi-objective design optimization can be mathemati-
cally defined as the problem of find the vector X* = [s1*, s2*,,
where x = [x1,,xv]T are the inputs of the network, each neu- sz*]T to optimize F(X) = [f1(X), f2(X),, f(X)] subject to p ine-
ron in the hidden layer is represented by a LLM and an asso- quality gi(X) 0, i = 1,, p, and q equality constraints hj(X) =
ciated validity function that determines the validity region of 0, j = 1,, q, where X* Rz is the vector of design variables
the LLM. The outputs of each LLM are given by and F(X) R is the vector of objective functions. Since in a
multi-objective optimization problem, usually objectives are
v
in conflict with each other, it is interesting to find the set of
yLLM i ( x) = j =1
wij x j + wi 0 (8)
Pareto optimal solutions which represent compromises among
conflicting objectives [19]. A solution X* is said to be Pareto
where wij and wi0 denote the weights connecting the jth input optimal or nondominated with respect to all X (denoted by
 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427 2421

F(X*) p F(X)) if and only if k

fi j +1 - fi j -1
CD j = f
i =1 i
max
- fi min
(20)

( )
"i {1, 2,K, k } : fi X * fi ( X )
$j {1, 2,K , k } : f ( X ) < f *
( X ).
j j
In this study, the objective functions are the RMSE, because
is sensitive to large errors and gives emphasis on fitting of
peak values, which is useful when large errors are undesirable
[20]. Also is considered the MRE used in Ref. [21] for model-
ing emissions and performance of a gasoline engine, in order
to obtain a network with the best generalization. The third
objective function is the sum of the squared weights. These
objective functions are given by Eqs. (17)-(19) respectively, in
order to find a tradeoff between error measure and network
complexity [16].
(15)
(16) where is the number of objectives, fimax and fimin are the
maximum and minimum values of the ith objective function
respectively, fij+1 and fij-1are the values of the ith objective for
the (j+1)th and (j-1)th solutions. So, if two individuals in the
population, Xa and Xb have the same rank, each one has a lar-
ger crowding distance is better.
Step 5. The best parents are chosen to generate a child
population Q0 of size t by two tournaments with randomly
selected individuals.
Step 6. The arithmetic crossover operator that combines
parent chromosome in order to produce new individuals is
obtained as

X% 1 = a X a + (1 - a ) X b (21)
1 L
f1 = ( ymeasi - y predi ) ,2
(17) X% 2 = (1 - a ) X a + a X b (22)
L i =1

L
1 ( ymeas - y pred ) where Xa and Xb are two parents, X% 1 and X% 2 are the two
f2 =
L 100
i =1
ymeas
, (18)
offspring resulted from the crossover and is a random
weighting factor in [0,1], this operation is performed with a
H v
1 crossover probability pc.
f3 =
2 w
i =1 j =1
2
ij (19)
Step 7. Mutation operator is performed to prevent the algo-
rithm is trapped in a local minimum and reaching a premature
convergence. The used polynomial mutation for a solution Xi
where L is the number of training datasets, ymeasi and y predi is described as follows
refer to measured and predicted engine output, respectively,
wij are the weights for the ith LLM in the hidden layer, and H 1/ (v +1)
(2xi ) m - 1, if xi < 0.5
and v are the number of LLM and input units respectively. Ji = (23)
1/(v m +1)
1 - (2(1 - xi )) , if xi 0.5
When these functions are minimized the LOLIMOT-GA out-
puts are closer to measured emissions. The NSGA-II proposed
by Deb et al. [22] performs a search towards the Pareto front where xi is a random number that ranges from 0 to 1, Ji is
and preventing premature convergence maintaining the ge- the mutation value, v m is the distribution index of the muta-
netic diversity within the population with an elitist mechanism. tion operator. Then, the Ji parameter is added to the parent
The general flowchart of scheme for LOLIMOT-GA network gene value as
design is shown in Fig. 4, which consists in the following
steps beginning with the NSGA-II. X% i = X i + Ji (24)

Step 1. Predefine a LOLIMOT-GA topology (number of
neurons in hidden layer).
Step 2. Create random population P0 of size t. Each individ-
ual represents a random set of LOLIMOT-GA weights.
Step 3. The LOLIMOT-GA outputs are calculated using the
weights associated to each individual and the training dataset.
Then, objective functions described by Eqs. (17)-(19) are cal-
culated.
Step 4. The t individuals of P0 are ranked according to non-
dominated and crowding distance of an individual, which is
the perimeter of the rectangle with its neighbors at diagonally
opposite corners. Therefore, evaluates the density of individu-
als surrounding a particular individual in P0. The definition of
crowding distance of the jth solution is given by
where X% i is a offspring and Xi is a parent in the population.
Step 8. At each iteration n, a combined population Rn =
Pn-1 Qn-1 is obtained.
Step 9. Sort intermediate population Rn of size 2t using non-
domination order relation and a new population Pn will be
formed for the subsequent generation (elitism) through elimi-
nating the unqualified solutions, i.e., the solutions overflow of t.
Step 10. Then, a group of optimum solutions will be gained
which is the Pareto optimal front.
Step 11. Repeat step 5 to step 10 until the number of maxi-
mum generation is reached.
Step 12. After acquire a set of Pareto solutions, obtain com-
promised solutions by using the fuzzy decision making and
TOPSIS methods.
2422 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427

Step 13. The final set of weights is saved and the RWLS al-
gorithm starts from the solution provided by GA.
Step 14. Evaluate neural network outputs by using testing
data set and computing the correlation coefficients R2.

5. Sensitivity analysis and fuzzy decision making

In this study, we want to investigate the impact of different
parameters on the performance of NSGA-II, in order to dis-
cover solutions as diverse as possible in the nondominated
front. For this, the spacing metric proposed by Schott [23] is
considered. This metric measures the distribution of solutions
along the Pareto front, calculated as

t 2
1 di
S=
t -1 i =1
- 1
d
(25)

where is the number of solutions in the nondominated set

k
and di = min k m =1
| f mi - f mk | , k = 1,..., and i k. is the

total number of objectives to be optimized and d is the mean

of all di. A Pareto front having a smaller S is better because
indicates that the solutions are closer to uniformly spread solu-
tions.
On the other hand, the set coverage metric proposed by Fig. 4. Flow chart of LOLIMOT optimization procedure based on
Zitzler and Thiele [24], measures the convergence of the Pare- NSGA-II.
to front by the relative spread of solutions between two non-
dominated sets. The set coverage metric C(A, B) calculates the
proportion of solutions in B which are weakly dominated by can be performed by using a membership value for the ith
solutions of A where A, B are two Pareto optimal sets, i.e., objective of the jth solution in the Pareto front, calculated as
follows
| {b B | $a A : a p b} |
C ( A, B ) = (26)
|B| fi max - fi
z ij = max
if fi min < fi fi max (28)
fi - fi min
where |B| represent the number of solutions in the set B, and
a p b means that solution a weakly dominates solution b. where fi is the value of the ith objective function, fimax are the
Therefore, C(A, B) gives the fraction of B dominated by A. maximum and fimin the minimum values of the ith objective
C(A, B) = 1 indicates that all the members of B are weakly function, ij indicates how well the jth nondominated solution
dominated by A. C(A, B) = 0 indicates that no member of B is is able to satisfy the ith objective. The accomplishment of
weakly dominated by A. For comparing more than two Pareto each Pareto solution with respect to all the nondominated
fronts, the metric C can be modified as follows: consider a set solutions can be calculated as
U consisting of nondominated sets i.e. U = A1, A2, ...,A,
then k

z j
=
z i =1
i
j

, (29)
t k

C ( Aj ) =
b
| {b Ai | $a A j : a p b} |
(27)
j =1 i =1
z ij

i =1, i j
| Aj |
where |Aj| represent the number of solutions in the set Aj.
The NSGA-II provides a set of nondominated solutions
which form the Pareto front, here a fuzzy based mechanism is
used to find an acceptable solution on the Pareto front. The
calculation of distances to the solution with maximum values
for all objectives can be referred to the membership function
concept in the fuzzy set theory. Then, a partial order sorting
where is the number of objectives and is the number of
solutions in the nondominated set. The solution with the max-
imum value of j is chosen to be a compromised solution in
the Pareto front. This fuzzy strategy is also being used in order
to determine a compromised solution from the solutions pro-
vided by NSGA-II [25].
Also, the TOPSIS method introduced in Ref. [26] is em-
ployed to give a ranking order of all alternatives (Pareto
 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427 2423

solutions) obtained by NSGA-II, based on decision criteria k

(objective functions). TOPSIS finds a compromise solution si- = (d

j =1
ij - d -j ) 2 (35)
which is the closest to the positive ideal solution and the far-
thest from the negative ideal solution from the Pareto set ac-
cording to the decision makers objective weights. The proc- where j+ indicates the ideal (best) and j- the negative ideal
ess of TOPSIS to compute the final ranking list and determine (worst) value of the considered objectives.
a compromise solution is presented by the following steps. (5) Calculate the relative closeness coefficient i, i = 1, ...,,
(1) Construct the normalized decision matrix, which allows for each Pareto solution according to the following equation
comparison across the objective values, this matrix is given by
si-
fitij W*i = . (36)
e ij = (30) si+ + si-
t
i =1
fitij2
(6) Choose a compromised solution TOP according to the
descending order of i as follows
where the element fitij is the jth objective value of the ith alter-
native (Pareto solutions), i = 1, 2,..., and j = 1, 2, 3. D*TOP = arg max W*i . (37)
it
(2) Compute the weighted normalized decision matrix given
by ij = jij , where j is the weight of the jth objective and
Considering the same importance of each objective (reduc-
must satisfy
tion of CO, HC and NOx), the weights j, j = 1,...,, take the
3 values = [0.33 0.33 0.33].
G j =1
j = 1. (31)
5.1 Results

(3) Calculate positive ideal solution + and negative ideal The proposed scheme for emission prediction is performed
solution - by using the following equations in MATLAB environment in a PC with CentrinoDuo preces-
sor, 2 GHz and 1 GB RAM. The initial NSGA-II parameters
D + = {min d ij } (32) are number of generations G = 10, population size t = 20 and
it
the crossover probability at pc = 0.7. The mutation probability
and is established at pm = 1/z, where z is the number of decision
variables. In this study, a NSGA-II parameter is varied while
all other parameters are kept constant in order to determine
D - = {max d ij }. (33)
it whether a parameter value is better than another. One ANN is
built for each exhaust emission allowing better adjustment of
(4) Compute the separation measure si+ between each alter- the ANN for a specific emission. The performance metrics are
native and + as shown in Table 2. Based on results, the architectures of
LOLIMOT were established as (6,5,1), (6,8,1), and (6,10,1) to
k predict CO, HC, and NOx emissions, respectively.
si+ = (d
j =1
ij - d +j ) 2 (34) For CO model, Table 2 shows that the number of generation
G = 40 provides the best value for set coverage metric (0.3).
Although, the best result with respect to spacing is obtained
and the separation measure si- between each Pareto solution with G = 10, the obtained value with G = 40 is competitive.
and - by Also a larger value of set coverage (0.55) indicates that better
solutions are obtained with a population of t = 60. A value of

Table 2. Sensitivity of generations, population and crossover probability on Pareto fronts.

Generations (G) Population (t) Crossover probability (pc)

10 20 40 20 40 60 0.7 0.8 0.9
Spacing for CO model 0.508 0.518 0.693 0.508 0.719 0.607 0.508 0.416 0.468
Set coverage for CO model 0.050 0.250 0.300 0 0.100 0.550 0.100 0.125 0.350
Spacing for HC model 0.621 1.230 0.924 0.621 0.907 1.155 0.621 1.268 0.663
Set coverage for HC model 0.025 0.525 0.625 0.039 0.928 0.250 0.225 0.125 0.400
Spacing for NOx model 1.780 1.164 0.841 1.780 1.248 2.115 1.780 0.877 1.023
Set coverage for NOx model 0.050 0.400 0.600 0.031 0.400 0.600 0.175 0.475 0.175
2424 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427

C = 0.35 indicates a better solutions with pc = 0.9. The per-

formance metrics show that G = 40, t = 60 and pc = 0.9 lead to
a better convergence and a more uniform distribution of the
Pareto front.
For HC model, the value of C = 0.625 indicates that 62.5%
of the Pareto solutions obtained with G = 20 and G = 10 are
weakly dominated by the solutions obtained with G = 40.
Similarly, the value of C = 0.525 represents that only 52.5%
of the solutions obtained with G = 40 and G = 10 are weakly
dominated by those with G = 20. Therefore, G = 40 must be
preferred. The comparison of set coverage metric shows that
the solutions obtained with t = 40 are more uniform. The
crossover probability pc = 0.9 provides the best result with
respect to set coverage (0.4) and spacing metric S = 0.663 is
competitive. Therefore, values of G = 40, t = 40 and pc = 0.9,
are chosen.
For NOx model, Table 2 shows that G = 40 generations Fig. 5. Pareto fronts and selected solutions of LOLIMOT-GA network
provide the best set coverage (0.600). A lower value of spac- on CO emission dataset.
ing metric (1.248) indicates a better spread of solutions with
population size t = 40. The crossover probability pc = 0.8 pro-
vides the best result with respect to spacing (0.877). The per-
formance metrics show that G = 40, t = 40 and pc = 0.8 lead to
a better convergence of the Pareto front.
To illustrate the difference between the Pareto fronts, these
are plotted in Figs. 5-7, for the three emissions models by
using different values of NSGA-II parameters. From these
Figs. training RMSE and MRE are decreasing as the network
complexity is increasing.
To find optimal networks that can offer the best accuracy
are employed the fuzzy decision making and TOPSIS meth-
ods, the best compromised solutions obtained with the deci-
sion makers are marked in Figs. 5-7.
A comparison of emission predictions is carried out using
RBF and MLP networks. The number of neurons in the hid-
den layer for RBF and MLP models is determined based on Fig. 6. Pareto fronts and selected solutions of LOLIMOT-GA network
the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) given by on HC emission dataset.

L
1 ymeasi - y predi
MAPE =
L i =1

ymeasi
100

(38)

where L = 40 is the number of training datasets. In Fig. 8 is

shown the MAPE behavior of RBF and MLP networks for
different number of neurons in the hidden layer to predict each
exhaust emission. The MAPE is smaller with (6,14,1), (6,8,1),
and (6,13,1) architectures for RBF neural networks to predict
CO, HC, and NOx emissions, respectively. And MAPE is
smaller for architectures (6,5,1), (6,7,1), and (6,14,1) for MLP
networks to model CO, HC and NOx emissions, respectively.
For validating the models, datasets that are not used to train
the networks are chosen. The coefficient of correlation R2 is
calculated for the evaluation of network performance given by
T
( ymeasi - y predi ) 2
2 i =1
R =1- T (39) Fig. 7. Pareto fronts and selected solutions of LOLIMOT-GA network

i =1
( y predi ) 2

on NOx emission dataset.
 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427 2425

Fig. 8. MAPE of RBF and MLP neural networks for different number
of neurons in the hidden layer for: (a) CO; (b) HC; (c) NOx. Fig. 9. Comparison between the measured and predicted CO for the
RBF, MLP and LOLIMOT-GA networks.

where T = 20 is the number of testing datasets. The correlation

between recorded and predicted emissions by using RBF,
MLP, and LOLIMOT-GA neural networks is shown in Figs.
9-11 for CO, HC and NOx, respectively. As it is visible in
these Figs. the predicted values in each model are very close
to the experimental data. Fig. 9 shows the correlation between
recorded CO and predicted CO by ANN. Here, R2 between
measured and predicted CO is 0.994 for LOLIMOT-GA with
fuzzy solution, whereas R2 is 0.956 and 0.937 for RBF and
MLP networks respectively. Fig. 10 shows a significant im-
provement for HC prediction achieved with LOLIMOT-GA
with TOPSIS solution for which R2 is 0.995 compared with
the LOLIMOT-GA with fuzzy solution, RBF and MLP. How-
ever, RBF has a small improvement (0.970 of R2) over MLP
(0.963 of R2) for HC emissions. Also LOLIMOT-GA with
TOPSIS solution (R2 = 0.997) offer better accuracy over
LOLIMOT-GA with fuzzy solution (R2 = 0.994) for NOx Fig. 10. Comparison between the measured and predicted HC for the
RBF, MLP and LOLIMOT-GA networks.
emissions. Values of R2 show that the proposed scheme based
on LOLIMOT network and NSGA-II is suitable to predict the
CO, HC and NOx emissions very close to the experimental
values of the studied four stroke gasoline engine. However,
the fuzzy decision maker cannot always provide the best com-
promised solution from the Pareto front and other methods as
TOPSIS should be used.
With the aim of determine the influence of each input vari-
able on the amount of engine emissions, a sensitivity analysis
of engine parameters on exhaust emissions is performed. Al-
though the experimental tests were performed at full load con-
dition, the relationships between the jth input to the neural
network including the ignition timing and the ith engine emis-
sion are calculated by the following equation

rij =
xy k =1
ik jk
(40)
h h
x
k =1
2
ik
k =1
y 2jk Fig. 11. Comparison between the measured and predicted NOx for the
RBF, MLP and LOLIMOT-GA networks.
2426 J. D. Martnez-Morales et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 28 (6) (2014) 2417~2427

Table 3. Effect rij of input parameters on exhaust emissions. Nomenclature------------------------------------------------------------------------

Emission neng : Engine speed
Input parameter CO HC NOx th : Angle of the admission throttle valve
neng 0.7507 0.8686 0.9185 tinj : Injection time
mfuel 0.7935 0.9131 0.9127 mfuel : Injected fuel mass flow
tinj 0.7794 0.9510 0.9409 IMAP : Intake manifold absolute pressure
th 0.8398 0.8938 0.8363 qign : Ignition time
x : Inputs of artificial neural networks
IMAP 0.7170 0.9442 0.9671
ypred : Output of artificial neural networks
ign 0.7157 0.9124 0.9511
ymeas : Measured engine exhaust emissions
F : Vector of objective functions
X : Vector of decision variables
where h = 60 is the number of datasets and x and y are the wij : Weights of neural networks
input parameters and output responses of the studied SI gaso- z ij : Membership function value
line engine respectively. The relationships between each input S : Spacing metric
parameter on the amount of exhaust emissions are shown in C : Set coverage metric
Table 3. As can be seen, the most effective parameter on CO MAPE : Mean absolute percentage error
emissions is the angle of the admission throttle valve th with r RMSE : Root mean square error
= 0.8398, while the injection time tinj and the IMAP have the MRE : Mean relative error
greatest effect on the amount of HC with r = 0.9510 and r = R2 : Coefficient of correlation
0.9442 respectively. For NOx emissions the parameters with G : Number of generations
greatest effect on emissions are ignition timing ign and IMAP pc : Crossover probability
with r equal to 0.9511 and 0.9671, respectively. This informa- t : Population size
tion can be used for determining the number of input parame- f1 : Objective function 1
ters needed for neural network models, for this study it was f2 : Objective function 2
needed measure the six input parameters considered, because f3 : Objective function 3
they have a significant impact on engine emissions. RBF : Radial basis function
MLP : Multilayer perceptron

6. Conclusion
In this work, a proposed approach based on LOLIMOT
neural networks with NSGA-II to determine weights of hid-
den layer, is performed to determine suitable predictions for
three exhaust emissions of a SI gasoline engine based on six
operating parameters. The modeled emissions of the studied
engine are carbon monoxides (CO), hydrocarbons (HC) and
nitrogen oxides (NOx). Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is
performed on genetic algorithm parameters in order to provide
solutions as diverse as possible along the optimal Pareto front
and a fuzzy decision maker and TOPSIS method are em-
ployed to select compromised solutions among the obtained
Pareto solutions. Comparison between MLP and RBF neural
networks and the proposed LOLIMOT-GA network in terms
of correlation coefficient R2 is carried out. The best values
found of R2 are 0.994 with the fuzzy solution, and 0.995 and
0.997 with TOPSIS solutions for testing datasets in the
LOLIMOT-GA models to predict CO, HC, and NOx exhaust
emissions respectively.
Acknowledgment
The first author acknowledges to National Council of Sci-
ence and Technology (CONACyT) of Mexico for financial
support to research through grant number 45765.
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Jos D. Martnez-Morales received his
M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering
from Faculty of Engineering of Autono-
mous University of San Luis Potos,
Mxico in 2009. He actually is a candi-
date for Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering
in Autonomous University of San Luis
Potos. His current research interests are
soft computing, optimization, artificial intelligence and dy-
namic systems.
Elvia R. Palacios-Hernndez received
her Ph.D. in Automated Systems from
the National Institute of Applied Sci-
ences of Toulouse, France in 2004. She
is currently a Professor in Faculty of
Science in Autonomous University of
San Luis Potos, Mxico. Her current
researches are control, dynamic systems
and soft computing.
Gerardo A. Velzquez-Carrillo re-
ceived his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engi-
neering from the National Institute of
Applied Sciences of Toulouse, France.
His research is mainly focused on vehi-
cle dynamics, control and dynamic sys-
tems.