An automatic parameter adjustment method of pulse coupled neural network for image segmentation

Abstract

A Pulse Coupled Neural Network (PCNN) is proposed as a numerical model of cat visual cortex, and it has been applied to the engineering fields especially in an image processing, e.g., segmentation, edge enhancement, and so on. The PCNN model consists of neurons with two kind of inputs, namely feeding input and linking input and they each have a lot of parameters. The Parameters are used to be defined empirically and the optimization of parameters has been known as one of the remaining problem of PCNN. According to the recent studies, parameters in PCNN will be able to be given using parameter learning rule or evolutionary programming. However these methods require teaching images for the learning. In this study, we propose a parameter adjustment method of PCNN for the image segmentation. The proposed method changes the parameters through the iterations of trial of segmentation and the method doesn't require any teaching signal or teaching pattern. The successful results are obtained in the simulations, and we conclude that the proposed method shows good performance for the parameter adjustment of PCNNs. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.