A new grey forecasting model based on BP neural network and Markov chain

A new grey forecasting model based on BP neural network and Markov chain was proposed. In order to combine the grey forecasting model with neural network, an important theorem that the grey differential equation is equivalent to the time response model, was proved by analyzing the features of grey forecasting model(GM(1,1)). Based on this, the differential equation parameters were included in the network when the BP neural network was constructed, and the neural network was trained by extracting samples from grey system’s known data. When BP network was converged, the whitened grey differential equation parameters were extracted and then the grey neural network forecasting model (GNNM(1,1)) was built. In order to reduce stochastic phenomenon in GNNM(1,1), the state transition probability between two states was defined and the Markov transition matrix was established by building the residual sequences between grey forecasting and actual value. Thus, the new grey forecasting model(MNNGM(1,1)) was proposed by combining Markov chain with GNNM(1,1). Based on the above discussion, three different approaches were put forward for forecasting China electricity demands. By comparing GM(1, 1) and GNNM(1,1) with the proposed model, the results indicate that the absolute mean error of MNNGM(1,1) is about 0.4 times of GNNM(1,1) and 0.2 times of GM(1,1), and the mean square error of MNNGM(1,1) is about 0.25 times of GNNM(1,1) and 0.1 times of GM(1,1).