PDE-guided reservoir computing for image denoising with small data

Abstract

While network-based techniques have shown outstanding performance in image denoising in the big data regime requiring massive datasets and expensive computation, mathematical understanding of their working principles is very limited. Not to mention, their relevance to traditional mathematical approaches has not attracted much attention. Therefore, we suggest how reservoir computing networks can be strengthened in combination with conventional partial differential equation (PDE) methods for image denoising, especially in the small data regime. Given image data, PDEs generate sequential datasets enhancing desired image features, which provide the network with a better guideline for training in reservoir computing. The proposed procedure, reservoir computing in collaboration with PDEs (RCPDE), offers a synergetic combination of data-driven network-based methods and mathematically well-established PDE methods. It turns out that RCPDE outperforms both the usual reservoir computing and existing PDE approaches in image denoising. Furthermore, RCPDE also excels deep neural networks such as a convolutional neural network both in quality and in time in the small data regime. We believe that RCPDE reveals the great potential of reservoir computing in collaboration with various mathematically justifiable dynamics for better performance as well as for better mathematical understanding.