Retrieval of Optical Constant and Particle Size Distribution of Particulate Media Using the PSO-Based Neural Network Algorithm

Abstract

An improved neural network algorithm was proposed and applied to the inverse radiative problems. A multi-strategy particle swarm optimization was applied to improve the performance of the back propagation multi-layer feed-forward neural network algorithm. Three commonly used particle size distribution (PSD) functions in a one-dimensional particle system were retrieved using the proposed algorithm. In addition, the optical constant was also estimated, and the measurement errors were considered. Results show that the proposed algorithm can be applied to the retrieval of PSDs and optical constant even with measurement errors. Finally, the proposed algorithm was applied to the simultaneous estimation of the PSDs and optical constant using the multi-wavelength and multi-thickness method.