Prediction of PM2.5 Mass Concentration Based on the Back Propagation (BP) Neural Network Optimized by t-Distribution Controlled Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

In the past few years, human-health has been severely impacted from PM2.5 and has thus been a very popular topic of study. Furthermore, monitoring and control of PM2.5 are becoming one of the major environmental problems. In view of this, the present work targets at the establishment of an optimized BP neural network model based on t-distributed control genetic algorithm (BPM-TCG). Subsequently, in order to verify the performance of the proposed BPM-TCG, comparison analyses were performed among the prediction results generated from BPM-TCG, BP neural network model and BP-GA according to hourly data of PM2.5 mass concentration, analysis of corresponding meteorological factors, and gas pollutant concentrations from October 2017 to August 2018 at Qiqihar University monitoring point. The experimental results showed that BPM-TCG had the highest prediction accuracy and the best generalization ability, excellent applicability and commonality. Additionally, it may provide a basis for predicting the mass concentration of PM2.5, and thereby control and prevent the air pollution.