arXiv subjects

Samuel Pinilla

Publications and source records attributed to Samuel Pinilla.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Full frame denoising for pyramid wavefront sensors

Adaptive optics systems operating under low-flux conditions face significant challenges, as photon and detector noise in particular degrade wavefront measurements and ultimately limit correction performance. While pyramid wavefront sensors (PyWFSs) offer greater sensitivity than conventional wavefront sensors such as the Shack-Hartmann sensor in many operating regimes, obtaining accurate wavefront estimates under photon-starved conditions remains a key challenge. We present a full-frame image denoising strategy for the PyWFS that exploits the nonlocal self-similarity of wavefront sensor image patches through FFT-accelerated patch grouping and global collaborative 3D wavelet filtering, applied directly to the raw PyWFS intensity frame prior to slope computation. Specifically, the method suppresses noise while preserving structural features required for accurate wavefront reconstruction. The approach is evaluated using end-to-end simulations of a VLT-scale SCAO system. The results show improved performance in low signal-to-noise regimes, with typical Strehl ratio gains of up to 12% and an increase in limiting magnitude of approximately 0.5 in median seeing conditions. Modal analysis indicates reduced variance across most controlled modes. The improved PSF quality enables a reduction in the FWHM and an enhanced contrast. These results demonstrate that image-domain denoising can improve the robustness of PyWFS-based AO systems and extend their operational range toward fainter guide stars.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Held-out evidence resolves follow-up measurement decisions in biological screens

Machine learning determines which follow-up measurements biological screens collect. In a six-rule Cell Painting battery, the highest-value rule would re-image 96.01% of the library and had a 97.14% false-activation upper bound, showing why predicted value alone cannot justify replacing a fixed plan. We developed OPAL, a held-out decision test that freezes a rule and judges unnecessary measurement, coverage and value after cost against archive-specific criteria fixed before final evaluation. A development-selected sparse Cell Painting rule had 18.2-fold lower added-well burden, but its false-discovery bound exceeded 35%, so the fixed plan remained. LINCS--LJP favored broad acquisition under point-estimate criteria set during development, not selective saving. CTRP required fallback because its frozen score missed measured opportunity. OPAL separates optimization from evidence sufficient to change an experiment.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Scalar-pathway fidelity improves physical accuracy in short-range equivariant interatomic potentials

Accurate interatomic potentials enable molecular dynamics of materials, molecules, and interfaces beyond density-functional-theory length and time scales. Equivariant neural network potentials have improved the representation of local geometry. However, their deployable energy surfaces ultimately manifest through invariant scalar channels, whose aggregation and spectral resolution remain comparatively underexamined. Here we use Physics-Aware Neighborhood (PAN) pooling and Physics-Guided Spectral (PGS) mixers as controlled scalar-pathway probes: lightweight, symmetry-preserving modifications that act only on $\ell=0$ channels while leaving the equivariant tensor backbone unchanged. Using MACE as a high-body-order mechanistic scaffold, PAN adds coordination-sensitive amplitude modulation, whereas PGS augments edge and readout scalar features with radial and tapered spectral bases. Across metallic Ag, covalent Si, a short-range ionic LiF/Li--F subset, and MD17/rMD17 molecules, this scalar-pathway correction reduces MACE force errors by 22--27\% and energy errors by 19--22\%; on systems with stress labels, stress errors decrease by 27--28\%, at approximately 5\% additional inference-FLOPs cost. Directionally consistent gains in Allegro and NequIP further indicate that the correction is portable across distinct short-range equivariant backbones, although effect sizes remain architecture-dependent. These results identify scalar-pathway fidelity as a practical design dimension for short-range equivariant interatomic potentials.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

WaveMax: Radar Waveform Design via Convex Maximization of FrFT Phase Retrieval

The ambiguity function (AF) is a critical tool in radar waveform design, representing the two-dimensional correlation between a transmitted signal and its time-delayed, frequency-shifted version. Obtaining a radar signal to match a specified AF magnitude is a bi-variate variant of the well-known phase retrieval problem. Prior approaches to this problem were either limited to a few classes of waveforms or lacked a computable procedure to estimate the signal. Our recent work provided a framework for solving this problem for both band- and time-limited signals using non-convex optimization. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach WaveMax that formulates waveform recovery as a convex optimization problem by relying on the fractional Fourier transform (FrFT)-based AF. We exploit the fact that AF of the FrFT of the original signal is equivalent to a rotation of the original AF. In particular, we reconstruct the radar signal by solving a low-rank minimization problem, which approximates the waveform using the leading eigenvector of a matrix derived from the AF. Our theoretical analysis shows that unique waveform reconstruction is achievable with a sample size no more than three times the signal frequencies or time samples. Numerical experiments validate the efficacy of WaveMax in recovering signals from noiseless and noisy AF, including scenarios with randomly and uniformly sampled sparse data.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2024

Deep Learning Evidence for Global Optimality of Gerver's Sofa

The Moving Sofa Problem, formally proposed by Leo Moser in 1966, seeks to determine the largest area of a two-dimensional shape that can navigate through an $L$-shaped corridor with unit width. The current best lower bound is about 2.2195, achieved by Joseph Gerver in 1992, though its global optimality remains unproven. In this paper, we investigate this problem by leveraging the universal approximation strength and computational efficiency of neural networks. We report two approaches, both supporting Gerver's conjecture that his shape is the unique global maximum. Our first approach is continuous function learning. We drop Gerver's assumptions that i) the rotation of the corridor is monotonic and symmetric and, ii) the trajectory of its corner as a function of rotation is continuously differentiable. We parameterize rotation and trajectory by independent piecewise linear neural networks (with input being some pseudo time), allowing for rich movements such as backward rotation and pure translation. We then compute the sofa area as a differentiable function of rotation and trajectory using our "waterfall" algorithm. Our final loss function includes differential terms and initial conditions, leveraging the principles of physics-informed machine learning. Under such settings, extensive training starting from diverse function initialization and hyperparameters is conducted, unexceptionally showing rapid convergence to Gerver's solution. Our second approach is via discrete optimization of the Kallus-Romik upper bound, which converges to the maximum sofa area from above as the number of rotation angles increases. We uplift this number to 10000 to reveal its asymptotic behavior. It turns out that the upper bound yielded by our models does converge to Gerver's area (within an error of 0.01% when the number of angles reaches 2100). We also improve their five-angle upper bound from 2.37 to 2.3337.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

Improved Imaging by Invex Regularizers with Global Optima Guarantees

Image reconstruction enhanced by regularizers, e.g., to enforce sparsity, low rank or smoothness priors on images, has many successful applications in vision tasks such as computer photography, biomedical and spectral imaging. It has been well accepted that non-convex regularizers normally perform better than convex ones in terms of the reconstruction quality. But their convergence analysis is only established to a critical point, rather than the global optima. To mitigate the loss of guarantees for global optima, we propose to apply the concept of \textit{invexity} and provide the first list of proved invex regularizers for improving image reconstruction. Moreover, we establish convergence guarantees to global optima for various advanced image reconstruction techniques after being improved by such invex regularization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first practical work applying invex regularization to improve imaging with global optima guarantees. To demonstrate the effectiveness of invex regularization, numerical experiments are conducted for various imaging tasks using benchmark datasets.

math.OC↗

arXiv2022

Group-Theoretic Wideband Radar Waveform Design

We investigate the theory of affine groups in the context of designing radar waveforms that obey the desired wideband ambiguity function (WAF). The WAF is obtained by correlating the signal with its time-dilated, Doppler-shifted, and delayed replicas. We consider the WAF definition as a coefficient function of the unitary representation of the group $a\cdot x + b$. This is essentially an algebraic problem applied to the radar waveform design. Prior works on this subject largely analyzed narrow-band ambiguity functions. Here, we show that when the underlying wideband signal of interest is a pulse or pulse train, a tight frame can be built to design that waveform. Specifically, we design the radar signals by minimizing the ratio of bounding constants of the frame in order to obtain lower sidelobes in the WAF. This minimization is performed by building a codebook based on difference sets in order to achieve the Welch bound. We show that the tight frame so obtained is connected with the wavelet transform that defines the WAF.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2022

An Overview of Advances in Signal Processing Techniques for Classical and Quantum Wideband Synthetic Apertures

Rapid developments in synthetic aperture (SA) systems, which generate a larger aperture with greater angular resolution than is inherently possible from the physical dimensions of a single sensor alone, are leading to novel research avenues in several signal processing applications. The SAs may either use a mechanical positioner to move an antenna through space or deploy a distributed network of sensors. With the advent of new hardware technologies, the SAs tend to be denser nowadays. The recent opening of higher frequency bands has led to wide SA bandwidths. In general, new techniques and setups are required to harness the potential of wide SAs in space and bandwidth. Herein, we provide a brief overview of emerging signal processing trends in such spatially and spectrally wideband SA systems. This guide is intended to aid newcomers in navigating the most critical issues in SA analysis and further supports the development of new theories in the field. In particular, we cover the theoretical framework and practical underpinnings of wideband SA radar, channel sounding, sonar, radiometry, and optical applications. Apart from the classical SA applications, we also discuss the quantum electric-field-sensing probes in SAs that are currently undergoing active research but remain at nascent stages of development.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2022

On design of hybrid diffractive optics for achromatic extended depth-of-field (EDoF) RGB imaging

A hybrid imaging system is a simultaneous physical arrangement of a refractive lens and a multilevel phase mask (MPM) as a diffractive optical element (DOE). The favorable properties of the hybrid setup are improved extended-depth-of-field (EDoF) imaging and low chromatic aberrations. We built a fully differentiable image formation model in order to use neural network techniques to optimize imaging. At the first stage, the design framework relies on the model-based approach with numerical simulation and end-to-end joint optimization of both MPM and imaging algorithms. In the second stage, MPM is fixed as found at the first stage, and the image processing is optimized experimentally using the CNN learning-based approach with MPM implemented by a spatial light modulator. The paper is concentrated on a comparative analysis of imaging accuracy and quality for design with various basic optical parameters: aperture size, lens focal length, and distance between MPM and sensor. We point out that the varying aperture size, lens focal length, and distance between MPM and sensor are for the first time considered for end-to-end optimization of EDoF. We numerically and experimentally compare the designs for visible wavelength interval [400-700]nm and the following EDoF ranges: [0.5-100]m for simulations and [0.5-1.9]m for experimental tests. This study concerns an application of hybrid optics for compact cameras with aperture [5-9] mm and distance between MPM and sensor [3-10]mm.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Hybrid Diffractive Optics Design via Hardware-in-the-Loop Methodology for Achromatic Extended-Depth-of-Field Imaging

End-to-end optimization of diffractive optical elements (DOEs) profile through a digital differentiable model combined with computational imaging have gained an increasing attention in emerging applications due to the compactness of resultant physical setups. Despite recent works have shown the potential of this methodology to design optics, its performance in physical setups is still limited and affected by manufacturing artifacts of DOE, mismatch between simulated and resultant experimental point spread functions, and calibration errors. Additionally, the computational burden of the digital differentiable model to effectively design the DOE is increasing, thus limiting the size of the DOE that can be designed. To overcome the above mentioned limitations, the broadband imaging system with phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM) as an encoded DOE is proposed and developed in this paper. A co-design of the SLM phase pattern and image reconstruction algorithm is produced following the end-to-end strategy, using for optimization a convolutional neural network equipped with quantitative and qualitative loss functions. The optics of the imaging system is hybrid consisting of SLM as DOE and refractive lens. SLM phase-pattern is optimized by applying the Hardware-in-the-loop technique, which helps to eliminate the mismatch between numerical modeling and physical reality of image formation as light propagation is not numerically modeled but is physically done. In our experiments, the hybrid optics is implemented by the optical projection of the SLM phase-pattern on a lens plane for a depth range 0.4-1.9m. Comparison with compound multi-lens optics such as Sony A7 III and iPhone Xs Max cameras show that the proposed system is advanced in all-in-focus sharp imaging.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Unfolding-Aided Bootstrapped Phase Retrieval in Optical Imaging

Phase retrieval in optical imaging refers to the recovery of a complex signal from phaseless data acquired in the form of its diffraction patterns. These patterns are acquired through a system with a coherent light source that employs a diffractive optical element (DOE) to modulate the scene resulting in coded diffraction patterns at the sensor. Recently, the hybrid approach of model-driven network or deep unfolding has emerged as an effective alternative to conventional model-based and learning-based phase retrieval techniques because it allows for bounding the complexity of algorithms while also retaining their efficacy. Additionally, such hybrid approaches have shown promise in improving the design of DOEs that follow theoretical uniqueness conditions. There are opportunities to exploit novel experimental setups and resolve even more complex DOE phase retrieval applications. This paper presents an overview of algorithms and applications of deep unfolding for bootstrapped - regardless of near, middle, and far zones - phase retrieval.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Phase Retrieval for Radar Waveform Design

The ability of a radar to discriminate in both range and Doppler velocity is completely characterized by the ambiguity function (AF) of its transmit waveform. Mathematically, it is obtained by correlating the waveform with its Doppler-shifted and delayed replicas. We consider the inverse problem of designing a radar transmit waveform that satisfies the specified AF magnitude. This process may be viewed as a signal reconstruction with some variation of phase retrieval methods. We provide a trust-region algorithm that minimizes a smoothed non-convex least-squares objective function to iteratively recover the underlying signal-of-interest for either time- or band-limited support. The method first approximates the signal using an iterative spectral algorithm and then refines the attained initialization based on a sequence of gradient iterations. Our theoretical analysis shows that unique signal reconstruction is possible using signal samples no more than thrice the number of signal frequencies or time samples. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our method recovers both time- and band-limited signals from sparsely and randomly sampled, noisy, and noiseless AFs.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2021

Non-Convex Recovery from Phaseless Low-Resolution Blind Deconvolution Measurements using Noisy Masked Patterns

This paper addresses recovery of a kernel $\boldsymbol{h}\in \mathbb{C}^{n}$ and a signal $\boldsymbol{x}\in \mathbb{C}^{n}$ from the low-resolution phaseless measurements of their noisy circular convolution $\boldsymbol{y} = \left \rvert \boldsymbol{F}_{lo}( \boldsymbol{x}\circledast \boldsymbol{h}) \right \rvert^{2} + \boldsymbol{\eta}$, where $\boldsymbol{F}_{lo}\in \mathbb{C}^{m\times n}$ stands for a partial discrete Fourier transform ($m<n$), $\boldsymbol{\eta}$ models the noise, and $\lvert \cdot \rvert$ is the element-wise absolute value function. This problem is severely ill-posed because both the kernel and signal are unknown and, in addition, the measurements are phaseless, leading to many $\boldsymbol{x}$-$\boldsymbol{h}$ pairs that correspond to the measurements. Therefore, to guarantee a stable recovery of $\boldsymbol{x}$ and $\boldsymbol{h}$ from $\boldsymbol{y}$, we assume that the kernel $\boldsymbol{h}$ and the signal $\boldsymbol{x}$ lie in known subspaces of dimensions $k$ and $s$, respectively, such that $m\gg k+s$. We solve this problem by proposing a blind deconvolution algorithm for phaseless super-resolution (BliPhaSu) to minimize a non-convex least-squares objective function. The method first estimates a low-resolution version of both signals through a spectral algorithm, which are then refined based upon a sequence of stochastic gradient iterations. We show that our BliPhaSu algorithm converges linearly to a pair of true signals on expectation under a proper initialization that is based on spectral method. Numerical results from experimental data demonstrate perfect recovery of both $\boldsymbol{h}$ and $\boldsymbol{x}$ using our method.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2021

Unique Bispectrum Inversion for Signals with Finite Spectral/Temporal Support

Retrieving a signal from its triple correlation spectrum, also called bispectrum, arises in a wide range of signal processing problems. Conventional methods do not provide an accurate inversion of bispectrum to the underlying signal. In this paper, we present an approach that uniquely recovers signals with finite spectral support (band-limited signals) from at least $3B$ measurements of its bispectrum function (BF), where $B$ is the signal's bandwidth. Our approach also extends to time-limited signals. We propose a two-step trust region algorithm that minimizes a non-convex objective function. First, we approximate the signal by a spectral algorithm and then refine the attained initialization based on a sequence of gradient iterations. Numerical experiments suggest that our proposed algorithm is able to estimate band-/time-limited signals from its BF for both complete and undersampled observations.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2021

Power-Balanced Hybrid Optics Boosted Design for Achromatic Extended-Depth-of-Field Imaging via Optimized Mixed OTF

The power-balanced hybrid optical imaging system is a special design of a diffractive computational camera, introduced in this paper, with image formation by a refractive lens and Multilevel Phase Mask (MPM). This system provides a long focal depth with low chromatic aberrations thanks to MPM and a high energy light concentration due to the refractive lens. We introduce the concept of optical power balance between the lens and MPM which controls the contribution of each element to modulate the incoming light. Additional unique features of our MPM design are the inclusion of quantization of the MPM's shape on the number of levels and the Fresnel order (thickness) using a smoothing function. To optimize optical power-balance as well as the MPM, we build a fully-differentiable image formation model for joint optimization of optical and imaging parameters for the proposed camera using Neural Network techniques. Additionally, we optimize a single Wiener-like optical transfer function (OTF) invariant to depth to reconstruct a sharp image. We numerically and experimentally compare the designed system with its counterparts, lensless and just-lens optical systems, for the visible wavelength interval (400-700)nm and the depth-of-field range (0.5-$\infty$m for numerical and 0.5-2m for experimental). The attained results demonstrate that the proposed system equipped with the optimal OTF overcomes its counterparts (even when they are used with optimized OTF) in terms of reconstruction quality for off-focus distances. The simulation results also reveal that optimizing the optical power-balance, Fresnel order, and the number of levels parameters are essential for system performance attaining an improvement of up to 5dB of PSNR using the optimized OTF compared with its counterpart lensless setup.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

Exact Crystalline Structure Recovery in X-ray Crystallography from Coded Diffraction Patterns

X-ray crystallography (XC) is an experimental technique used to determine three-dimensional crystalline structures. The acquired data in XC, called diffraction patterns, is the Fourier magnitudes of the unknown crystalline structure. To estimate the crystalline structure from its diffraction patterns, we propose to modify the traditional system by including an optical element called coded aperture which modulates the diffracted field to acquire coded diffraction patterns (CDP). For the proposed coded system, in contrast with the traditional, we derive exact reconstruction guarantees for the crystalline structure from CDP (up to a global shift phase). Additionally, exploiting the fact that the crystalline structure can be sparsely represented in the Fourier domain, we develop an algorithm to estimate the crystal structure from CDP. We show that this method requires 50% fewer measurements to estimate the crystal structure in comparison with its competitive alternatives. Specifically, the proposed method is able to reduce the exposition time of the crystal, implying that under the proposed setup, its structural integrity is less affected in comparison with the traditional. We discuss further implementation of imaging devices that exploits this theoretical coded system.

eess.IV↗

arXiv2019

Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating Recovery via Smoothing Gradient

Frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) is a popular technique for complete characterization of ultrashort laser pulses. The acquired data in FROG, called FROG trace, is the Fourier magnitude of the product of the unknown pulse with a time-shifted version of itself, for several different shifts. To estimate the pulse from the FROG trace, we propose an algorithm that minimizes a smoothed non-convex least-squares objective function. The method consists of two steps. First, we approximate the pulse by an iterative spectral algorithm. Then, the attained initialization is refined based upon a sequence of block stochastic gradient iterations. The algorithm is theoretically simple, numerically scalable, and easy-to-implement. Empirically, our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art when the FROG trace is incomplete, that is, when only few shifts are recorded. Simulations also suggest that the proposed algorithm exhibits similar computational cost compared to a state-of-the-art technique for both complete and incomplete data. In addition, we prove that in the vicinity of the true solution, the algorithm converges to a critical point. A Matlab implementation is publicly available at https://github.com/samuelpinilla/FROG.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2018

SPRSF: Sparse Phase Retrieval via Smoothing Function

Phase retrieval (PR) is an ill-conditioned inverse problem which can be found in various science and engineering applications. Assuming sparse priority over the signal of interest, recent algorithms have been developed to solve the phase retrieval problem. Some examples include SparseAltMinPhase (SAMP), Sparse Wirtinger flow (SWF) and Sparse Truncated Amplitude flow (SPARTA). However, the optimization cost functions of the mentioned algorithms are non-convex and non-smooth. In order to fix the non-smoothness of the cost function, the SPARTA method uses truncation thresholds to calculate a truncated step update direction. In practice, the truncation procedure requires calculating more parameters to obtain a desired performance in the phase recovery. Therefore, this paper proposes an algorithm called SPRSF (Sparse Phase retrieval via Smoothing Function) to solve the sparse PR problem by introducing a smoothing function. SPRSF is an iterative algorithm where the update step is obtained by a hard thresholding over a gradient descent direction. Theoretical analyses show that the smoothing function uniformly approximates the non-convex and non-smooth sparse PR optimization problem. Moreover, SPRSF does not require the truncation procedure used in SPARTA. Numerical tests demonstrate that SPRSF performs better than state-of-the-art methods, especially when there is no knowledge about the sparsity $k$. In particular, SPRSF attains a higher mean recovery rate in comparison with SPARTA, SAMP and SWF methods, when the sparsity varies for the real and complex cases. Further, in terms of the sampling complexity, the SPRSF method outperforms its competitive alternatives.

math.OC↗