Enhanced Supervised Descent Learning Technique for Electromagnetic Inverse Scattering Problems by the Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

This work proposes a novel deep learning (DL) framework to solve the electromagnetic inverse scattering (EMIS) problems. The proposed framework integrates the complex-valued deep convolutional neural network (DConvNet) into the supervised descent method (SDM) to realize both off-line training and on-line “imaging” prediction for EMIS. The offline training consists of two parts: 1) DConvNet training: the training dataset is created, and the proposed DConvNet is trained to realize the EM forward process and 2) SDM training: the trained DConvNet is integrated into the SDM framework, and the average descent directions between the initial prediction and the true label of SDM iterative schemes are learned based on the same dataset in part 1). In the online step, the contrasts (permittivities) reconstruction of scatterers is realized by the SDM iteration process based on learned descent directions, while its forward process is achieved by the trained complex-valued DConvNet. Ultimately, this framework provides a new perspective to integrate the prior information into the EMIS solving process with the maintained accuracy. Unlike the conventional SDM, the novel proposed framework can significantly shorten the computation and realize the real-time imaging. Various numerical examples and discussions are provided to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed novel framework.