Communications on Applied Mathematics and Computation ›› 2026, Vol. 8 ›› Issue (4): 1527-1549.doi: 10.1007/s42967-025-00509-y

• ORIGINAL PAPERS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Efficient Legendre Polynomial Neural Networks Method for Time-Fractional Partial Differential Equations with Singularity

Hong-Liang Huang1, Da-Kang Cen2, Seak-Weng Vong1, Siu-Long Lei1   

  1. 1. Department of Mathematics, University of Macau, Macau, China;
    2. Department of Mathematics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
  • Received:2025-04-10 Revised:2025-05-23 Accepted:2025-06-02 Online:2026-08-20 Published:2026-09-17
  • Supported by:
    This work is supported in part by research grants from the University of Macau (file nos. MYRG-GRG2023-00181-FST-UMDF, MYRG-GRG2024-00237-FST-UMDF, and MYRG-GRG2024-00100-FST-UMDF) and the Science and Technology Development Fund, Macau SAR (file no. 0151/2022/A). We would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Huang Yunchi from the Department of Mathematics at Shantou University for his guidance.

Abstract: Compared to multi-layer neural networks based on nonlinear activation functions, single-layer neural networks that use smooth linear functions as activation functions can quickly numerically solve time-fractional partial differential equations (TFPDEs) with time derivative of order α ∈ (0, 1). However, due to the weak singularity of the solution which is not smooth near the initial time, resulting in significant numerical errors when using neural networks based on smooth functions as activation functions. In this paper, we develop a decomposition method to reduce the singularity of the initial value, and theoretically demonstrate that this method can reduce the singularity. Then, a new single-layer neural network and a fast training method are proposed based on the decomposition method and the smooth linear activation function. Numerical experiments have shown that this method reduces errors and improves computational speed.

Key words: Singularity, Caputo fractional derivative, Caputo-Hadamard fractional derivative, Fitted method, Neural networks