Multi-fidelity Bayesian Neural Networks: Algorithms and Applications

TL;DR

This paper introduces multi-fidelity Bayesian neural networks that integrate low- and high-fidelity data with physics-informed models, enabling accurate function approximation, PDE parameter inference, and uncertainty quantification in complex systems.

Contribution

It presents a novel multi-fidelity BNN framework combining three neural networks trained with Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for uncertainty estimation, applied to diverse scientific problems.

Findings

Accurately approximated functions in multiple dimensions.

Inferred PDE parameters and reaction rates effectively.

Quantified uncertainties and improved predictions with active learning.

Abstract

We propose a new class of Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) that can be trained using noisy data of variable fidelity, and we apply them to learn function approximations as well as to solve inverse problems based on partial differential equations (PDEs). These multi-fidelity BNNs consist of three neural networks: The first is a fully connected neural network, which is trained following the maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) method to fit the low-fidelity data; the second is a Bayesian neural network employed to capture the cross-correlation with uncertainty quantification between the low- and high-fidelity data; and the last one is the physics-informed neural network, which encodes the physical laws described by PDEs. For the training of the last two neural networks, we use the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo method to estimate accurately the posterior distributions for the corresponding hyperparameters. We demonstrate the accuracy of the present method using synthetic data as well as real measurements. Specifically, we first approximate a one- and four-dimensional function, and then infer the reaction rates in one- and two-dimensional diffusion-reaction systems. Moreover, we infer the sea surface temperature (SST) in the Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays using satellite images and in-situ measurements. Taken together, our results demonstrate that the present method can capture both linear and nonlinear correlation between the low- and high-fideilty data adaptively, identify unknown parameters in PDEs, and quantify uncertainties in predictions, given a few scattered noisy high-fidelity data. Finally, we demonstrate that we can effectively and efficiently reduce the uncertainties and hence enhance the prediction accuracy with an active learning approach, using as examples a specific one-dimensional function approximation and an inverse PDE problem.