Radial Basis Function Approximations: Comparison and Applications

Abstract: Approximation of scattered data is often a task in many engineering problems. The Radial Basis Function (RBF) approximation is appropriate for large scattered (unordered) datasets in d-dimensional space. This approach is useful for a higher dimension d>2, because the other methods require the conversion of a scattered dataset to an ordered dataset (i.e. a semi-regular mesh is obtained by using some tessellation techniques), which is computationally expensive. The RBF approximation is non-separable, as it is based on the distance between two points. This method leads to a solution of Linear System of Equations (LSE) Ac=h. In this paper several RBF approximation methods are briefly introduced and a comparison of those is made with respect to the stability and accuracy of computation. The proposed RBF approximation offers lower memory requirements and better quality of approximation.