A novel grey forecasting model and its optimization

Although the grey forecasting model has been successfully employed in many fields and demonstrated promising results, its prediction results may be inaccurate sometimes. For the purposes of enhancing the predictive performance of grey forecasting model and enlarging its suitable ranges, this paper puts forward a novel grey forecasting model termed NGM model and its optimized model, develops a calculative formula for solving the parameters of the novel NGM model through the least squares method, and obtains the time response sequence of NGM model by using differential equation as a procedure for reasoning. It performs a numerical demonstration on the prediction accuracy of NGM model and its optimized models. As shown in the results, the proposed model and it optimized model can enhance the prediction accuracy. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed NGM model and its optimized model are effective. They are suitable for predicting the data sequence with the characteristics of non-homogeneous exponential law. This work makes important contribution to the enrichment of grey prediction theory. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.