Maokun Li

Tao Shan, Wei Tang, Xunwang Dang et al.

In this work, we investigated the feasibility of applying deep learning techniques to solve Poisson's equation. A deep convolutional neural network is set up to predict the distribution of electric potential in 2D or 3D cases. With proper training data generated from a finite difference solver, the strong approximation capability of the deep convolutional neural network allows it to make correct prediction given information of the source and distribution of permittivity. With applications of L2 regularization, numerical experiments show that the predication error of 2D cases can reach below 1.5\% and the predication of 3D cases can reach below 3\%, with a significant reduction in CPU time compared with the traditional solver based on finite difference methods.

Rui Guo, Tianyao Huang, Maokun Li et al.

Electromagnetic (EM) imaging is widely applied in sensing for security, biomedicine, geophysics, and various industries. It is an ill-posed inverse problem whose solution is usually computationally expensive. Machine learning (ML) techniques and especially deep learning (DL) show potential in fast and accurate imaging. However, the high performance of purely data-driven approaches relies on constructing a training set that is statistically consistent with practical scenarios, which is often not possible in EM imaging tasks. Consequently, generalizability becomes a major concern. On the other hand, physical principles underlie EM phenomena and provide baselines for current imaging techniques. To benefit from prior knowledge in big data and the theoretical constraint of physical laws, physics embedded ML methods for EM imaging have become the focus of a large body of recent work. This article surveys various schemes to incorporate physics in learning-based EM imaging. We first introduce background on EM imaging and basic formulations of the inverse problem. We then focus on three types of strategies combining physics and ML for linear and nonlinear imaging and discuss their advantages and limitations. Finally, we conclude with open challenges and possible ways forward in this fast-developing field. Our aim is to facilitate the study of intelligent EM imaging methods that will be efficient, interpretable and controllable.

Changhao Liu, Fan Yang, Maokun Li et al.

The past decade has witnessed the advances of artificial intelligence with various applications in engineering. Recently, artificial neural network empowered inverse design for metasurfaces has been developed that can design on-demand meta-atoms with diverse shapes and high performance, where the design process based on artificial intelligence is fast and automatic. However, once the inverse-designed static meta-atom is fabricated, the function of the metasurface is fixed. Reconfigurable metasurfaces can realize dynamic functions, while applying artificial intelligence to design practical reconfigurable meta-atoms inversely has not been reported yet. Here, we present a deep-learning-empowered inverse design method for freeform reconfigurable metasurfaces, which can generate on-demand reconfigurable coding meta-atoms at self-defined frequency bands. To reduce the scale of dataset, a decoupling method of the reconfigurable meta-atom based on microwave network theory is proposed at first, which can convert the inverse design process for reconfigurable coding meta-atoms to the inverse design for static structures. A convolutional neural network model is trained to predict the responses of free-shaped meta-atoms, and the genetic algorithm is applied to generate the optimal structure patterns rapidly. As a demonstration of concept, several inverse-designed examples are generated with different self-defined spectrum responses in microwave band, and an inverse-designed wideband reconfigurable metasurface prototype is fabricated and measured for beam scanning applications with broad bandwidth. Our work paves the way for the fast and automatic design process of high-performance reconfigurable metasurfaces.

Daoqi Liu, Tao Shan, Maokun Li et al.

In this work, we propose a deep learning-based imaging method for addressing the multi-frequency electromagnetic (EM) inverse scattering problem (ISP). By combining deep learning technology with EM physical laws, we have successfully developed a multi-frequency neural Born iterative method (NeuralBIM), guided by the principles of the single-frequency NeuralBIM. This method integrates multitask learning techniques with NeuralBIM's efficient iterative inversion process to construct a robust multi-frequency Born iterative inversion model. During training, the model employs a multitask learning approach guided by homoscedastic uncertainty to adaptively allocate the weights of each frequency's data. Additionally, an unsupervised learning method, constrained by the physical laws of ISP, is used to train the multi-frequency NeuralBIM model, eliminating the need for contrast and total field data. The effectiveness of the multi-frequency NeuralBIM is validated through synthetic and experimental data, demonstrating improvements in accuracy and computational efficiency for solving ISP. Moreover, this method exhibits strong generalization capabilities and noise resistance. The multi-frequency NeuralBIM method explores a novel inversion method for multi-frequency EM data and provides an effective solution for the electromagnetic ISP of multi-frequency data.

Hongyu Zhou, Haoran Sun, Rui Guo et al.

In this study, we investigate feature-based 2.5D controlled source marine electromagnetic (mCSEM) data inversion using generative priors. Two-and-half dimensional modeling using finite difference method (FDM) is adopted to compute the response of horizontal electric dipole (HED) excitation. Rather than using a neural network to approximate the entire inverse mapping in a black-box manner, we adopt a plug-andplay strategy in which a variational autoencoder (VAE) is used solely to learn prior information on conductivity distributions. During the inversion process, the conductivity model is iteratively updated using the Gauss Newton method, while the model space is constrained by projections onto the learned VAE decoder. This framework preserves explicit control over data misfit and enables flexible adaptation to different survey configurations. Numerical and field experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach effectively incorporates prior information, improves reconstruction accuracy, and exhibits good generalization performance.

Haoran Sun, Daoqi Liu, Hongyu Zhou et al.

Inverse scattering problems are critical in electromagnetic imaging and medical diagnostics but are challenged by their nonlinearity and diverse measurement scenarios. This paper proposes a physics-informed deep contrast source inversion framework (DeepCSI) for fast and accurate medium reconstruction across various measurement conditions. Inspired by contrast source inversion (CSI) and neural operator methods, a residual multilayer perceptron (ResMLP) is employed to model current distributions in the region of interest under different transmitter excitations, effectively linearizing the nonlinear inverse scattering problem and significantly reducing the computational cost of traditional full-waveform inversion. By modeling medium parameters as learnable tensors and utilizing a hybrid loss function that integrates state equation loss, data equation loss, and total variation regularization, DeepCSI establishes a fully differentiable framework for joint optimization of network parameters and medium properties. Compared with conventional methods, DeepCSI offers advantages in terms of simplicity and universal modeling capabilities for diverse measurement scenarios, including phase-less and multi-frequency observation. Simulations and experiments demonstrate that DeepCSI achieves high-precision, robust reconstruction under full-data, phaseless data, and multifrequency conditions, outperforming traditional CSI methods and providing an efficient and universal solution for complex inverse scattering problems.

Da Li, Guoqiang Zhao, Chen Yao et al.

Three-dimensional synthetic aperture radar (3D SAR) is an advanced active microwave imaging technology widely utilized in remote sensing area. To achieve high-resolution 3D imaging,3D SAR requires observations from multiple aspects and altitude baselines surrounding the target. However, constrained flight trajectories often lead to sparse observations, which degrade imaging quality, particularly for anisotropic man-made small targets, such as vehicles and aircraft. In the past, compressive sensing (CS) was the mainstream approach for sparse 3D SAR image reconstruction. More recently, deep learning (DL) has emerged as a powerful alternative, markedly boosting reconstruction quality and efficiency. However, existing DL-based methods typically rely solely on high-quality 3D SAR images as supervisory signals to train deep neural networks (DNNs). This unimodal learning paradigm prevents the integration of complementary information from other data modalities, which limits reconstruction performance and reduces target discriminability due to the inherent constraints of electromagnetic scattering. In this paper, we introduce cross-modal learning and propose a Cross-Modal 3D-SAR Reconstruction Network (CMAR-Net) for enhancing sparse 3D SAR images of vehicle targets by fusing optical information. Leveraging cross-modal supervision from 2D optical images and error propagation guaranteed by differentiable rendering, CMAR-Net achieves efficient training and reconstructs sparse 3D SAR images, which are derived from highly sparse-aspect observations, into visually structured 3D vehicle images. Trained exclusively on simulated data, CMAR-Net exhibits robust generalization to real-world data, outperforming state-of-the-art CS and DL methods in structural accuracy within a large-scale parking lot experiment involving numerous civilian vehicles, thereby demonstrating its strong practical applicability.

Tao Shan, Zhichao Lin, Xiaoqian Song et al.

In this paper, we propose the neural Born iterative method (NeuralBIM) for solving 2D inverse scattering problems (ISPs) by drawing on the scheme of physics-informed supervised residual learning (PhiSRL) to emulate the computing process of the traditional Born iterative method (TBIM). NeuralBIM employs independent convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to learn the alternate update rules of two different candidate solutions regarding the residuals. Two different schemes are presented in this paper, including the supervised and unsupervised learning schemes. With the data set generated by the method of moments (MoM), supervised NeuralBIM are trained with the knowledge of total fields and contrasts. Unsupervised NeuralBIM is guided by the physics-embedded objective function founding on the governing equations of ISPs, which results in no requirement of total fields and contrasts for training. Numerical and experimental results further validate the efficacy of NeuralBIM.