Centroid-based clustering is an unsupervised machine learning technique used to group data points into clusters. This type of clustering is based on the notion that each cluster is represented by a central point, or centroid. The centroid is usually the mean of the points in the cluster, and the points are grouped together based on their distance from the centroid.
Centroid-based clustering is a popular technique in machine learning because it is relatively simple to implement and can be used to solve a variety of problems. For example, it can be used to identify customer segments, detect anomalies, and identify clusters in data.
The most common type of centroid-based clustering is k-means clustering. This technique works by randomly assigning data points to k clusters and then calculating the centroid of each cluster. The centroid is then used to update the cluster assignment of the data points. This process is repeated until the centroids converge, meaning that the centroid of each cluster no longer changes.
One of the advantages of centroid-based clustering is that it is relatively easy to interpret. The centroid of each cluster can be used to describe the cluster, and the distance from the centroid can be used to measure the similarity between data points.
However, centroid-based clustering is not without its drawbacks. One of the main drawbacks is that it is sensitive to outliers, meaning that a single outlier can significantly affect the centroid of a cluster. Additionally, centroid-based clustering can be computationally expensive, as the centroids must be recalculated after each iteration.
Overall, centroid-based clustering is a powerful and popular machine learning technique that can be used to identify clusters in data. While it has its drawbacks, it is relatively simple to implement and can be used to solve a variety of problems.