Mode Recognition of Orbital Angular Momentum Based on Attention Pyramid Convolutional Neural Network

Abstract

In an effort to address the problem of the insufficient accuracy of existing orbital angular momentum (OAM) detection systems for vortex optical communication, an OAM mode detection technology based on an attention pyramid convolution neural network (AP-CNN) is proposed. By introducing fine-grained image classification, the low-level detailed features of the similar light intensity distribution of vortex beam superposition and plane wave interferograms are fully utilized. Using ResNet18 as the backbone of AP-CNN, a dual path structure with an attention pyramid is adopted to detect subtle differences in the light intensity in images. Under different turbulence intensities and transmission distances, the detection accuracy and system bit error rate of basic CNN with three convolution layers and two full connection layers, i.e., ResNet18 and ResNet18, with a specified mapping relationship and AP-CNN, are numerically analyzed. Compared to ResNet18, AP-CNN achieves up to a 7% improvement of accuracy and a 3% reduction of incorrect mode identification in the confusion matrix of superimposed vortex modes. The accuracy of single OAM mode detection based on AP-CNN can be effectively improved by 5.5% compared with ResNet18 at a transmission distance of 2 km in strong atmospheric turbulence. The proposed OAM detection scheme may find important applications in optical communications and remote sensing.