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A novel Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD) combined Fuzzy-Twin Support Vector Machine Model with deep learning mechanism is devised in this research study to forecast the solar Photovoltaic (PV) output power in day ahead basis. The raw data from the solar PV farms are highly fluctuating and to extract the useful stable components VMD is employed. A novel Fuzzy–Twin Support Vector Machine (FTSVM) model developed acts as the forecasting model for predicting the solar PV output power for the considered solar farms. The twin support vector machine (SVM) model formulates two separating hyperplanes for predicting the output power and in this research study a fuzzy based membership function identifies most suitable two SVM prediction hyperplanes handling the uncertainties of solar farm data. For the developed, new VMD-FTSVM prediction technique, their optimal parameters for the training process are evaluated with the classic Ant Lion Optimizer (ALO) algorithm. The solar PV output power is predicted using the novel VMD-FTSVM model and during the process multi-kernel functions are utilized to devise the two fuzzy based hyperplanes that accurately performs the prediction operation. Deep learning (DL) based training of the FTSVM model is adopted so that the deep auto-encoder and decoder module enhances the accuracy rate. The proposed combined forecasting model, VMD-ALO-DLFTSVM is validated for superiority based on a two 250MW PV solar farm in India. Results prove that the proposed model outperforms the existing model in terms of the performance metrics evaluated and the forecasted PV Power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yield gaps of maize (Zea mays L.) in the smallholder farms of eastern India are outcomes of a complex interplay of climatic variations, soil fertility gradients, socio-economic factors, and differential management intensities. Several machine learning approaches were used in this study to investigate the relative influences of multiple biophysical, socio-economic, and crop management features in determining maize yield variability using several machine learning approaches. Soil fertility status was assessed in 180 farms and paired with the surveyed data on maize yield, socio-economic conditions, and agronomic management. The C&RT relative variable importance plot identified farm size, total labor, soil factors, seed rate, fertilizer, and organic manure as influential factors. Among the three approaches compared for classifying maize yield, the artificial neural network (ANN) yielded the least (25%) misclassification on validation samples. The random forest partial dependence plots revealed a positive association between farm size and maize productivity. Nonlinear support vector machine boundary analysis for the eight top important variables revealed complex interactions underpinning maize yield response. Notably, farm size and total labor synergistically increased maize yield. Future research integrating these algorithms with empirical crop growth models and crop simulation models for ex-ante yield estimations could result in further improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) plays a fundamental role in irrigated agriculture. The objective of this study is to simulate monthly ET0 at a meteorological station in India using a new method, an improved support vector machine (SVM) based on the cuckoo algorithm (CA), which is known as SVM-CA. Maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and sunshine hours were selected as inputs for the models used in the simulation. The results of the simulation using SVM-CA were compared with those from experimental models, genetic programming (GP), model tree (M5T) and the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The achieved results demonstrate that the proposed SVM-CA model is able to simulate ET0 more accurately than the GP, M5T and ANFIS models. Two major indicators, namely, root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE), indicated that the SVM-CA outperformed the other methods with respective reductions of 5–15% and 5–17% compared with the GP model, 12–21% and 10–22% compared with the M5T model, and 7–15% and 5–18% compared with the ANFIS model, respectively. Therefore, the proposed SVM-CA model has high potential for accurate simulation of monthly ET0 values compared with the other models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]