Enhancement Strategies for Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems

This thesis systematically explores the enhancement of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems within Large Language Models, emphasizing optimization of retrieval parameters and generation accuracy. We investigate optimal configurations in RAG systems, including chunk size and overlap percentages, top-k selection, query transformations, different retrieval methods, different LLMs, namely GPT-3.5-Turbo and GPT-4, discovering that a chunk size of 500 tokens generally offers the best performance. Vector search using cosine similarity emerges as the most effective retrieval method, significantly enhancing both context precision and recall across various tasks and knowledge bases. Experimentation within the CRUD-RAG framework demonstrates its applicability in diverse tasks from content creation to knowledge refinement. Our findings indicate that enhancements in retrieval settings can markedly improve the performance of RAG systems, making them more efficient and adaptable for complex information synthesis and retrieval tasks. These results affirm the potential of systematic enhancements to improve AI-driven language models in practical applications, contributing significant insights and practical approaches to the evolving landscape of RAG system research.