Symbolic regression via neural networks

Identifying governing equations for a dynamical system is a topic of critical interest across an array of disciplines, from mathematics to engineering to biology. Machine learning—specifically deep learning—techniques have shown their capabilities in approximating dynamics from data, but a shortcoming of traditional deep learning is that there is little insight into the underlying mapping beyond its numerical output for a given input. This limits their utility in analysis beyond simple prediction. Simultaneously, a number of strategies exist which identify models based on a fixed dictionary of basis functions, but most either require some intuition or insight about the system, or are susceptible to overfitting or a lack of parsimony. Here, we present a novel approach that combines the flexibility and accuracy of deep learning approaches with the utility of symbolic solutions: a deep neural network that generates a symbolic expression for the governing equations. We first describe the architecture for our model and then show the accuracy of our algorithm across a range of classical dynamical systems.