An Optimized Grey GM(2,1) Model and Forecasting of Highway Subgrade Settlement

Grey prediction technique is a useful tool for few data analysis and short term forecasting. GM(2,1) model is one of the most important grey models. For improving the precision and prediction ability, we proposed a structure optimized GM(2,1) model, namely, SOGM(2,1) model. This study contributes grey prediction theory on three points. First, SOGM(2,1) model utilizes background sequence and inverse accumulating generated sequence to construct new grey equation with optimized structure, and then estimation of parameters is derived based on least errors. Second, reflection equation is constructed and the solving process is derived with the time response function acquired. Third, we put forward a new method for establishing initial values of time response function. After that, the new model is used to predict highway settlement of an engineering assessment. Comparing with other models, the results show that SOGM(2,1) is effective and practicable to forecast.