Two k-winners-take-all networks with discontinuous activation functions

This paper presents two k-winners-take-all (k-WTA) networks with discontinuous activation functions. The k-WTA operation is first converted equivalently into linear and quadratic programming problems. Then two k-winners-take-all networks are designed based on the linear and quadratic programming formulations. The networks are theoretically guaranteed to be capable of performing the k-WTA operation in real time. Simulation results show the effectiveness and performance of the networks. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.