Convolutional Neural Networks

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have become a strong tool in the field of deep learning, changing many fields like computer vision, natural language processing, and robotics. CNNs are especially good for image recognition jobs because they can automatically learn relevant features from raw input data. In this blog, we will delve into the workings of CNNs, exploring their architecture, components, and applications.

 

What are convolutional neural networks?

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are a class of deep learning algorithms specifically designed for processing and analyzing visual data, such as images and videos. They are inspired by the human visual system, which is known for its ability to identify patterns and features in the visual input.

CNNs are widely used in computer vision tasks, such as image classification, object detection, segmentation, and image generation. The key idea behind CNNs is to use convolutional layers to automatically learn and extract relevant features from the input data, which are then used for making predictions.

 

How do convolutional neural networks work?

Convolutional neural networks are distinguished from other neural networks by their superior performance with image, speech, or audio signal inputs. They have three main types of layers, which are:

• Convolutional layer
• Pooling layer
• Fully-connected (FC) layer

The convolutional layer is the first layer of a convolutional network. While convolutional layers can be followed by additional convolutional layers or pooling layers, the fully-connected layer is the final layer. With each layer, the CNN increases in its complexity, identifying greater portions of the image. Earlier layers focus on simple features, such as colors and edges. As the image data progresses through the layers of the CNN, it starts to recognize larger elements or shapes of the object until it finally identifies the intended object.

 

Convolutional layer

A Convolutional Layer is a fundamental building block of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), which are widely used for tasks like image and video recognition, natural language processing, and various other tasks involving grid-like data. The convolutional layer plays a crucial role in extracting features from input data.

The primary purpose of a convolutional layer is to perform convolution operations on the input data. Convolution is a mathematical operation that involves sliding a small filter (also known as a kernel) over the input data and computing the dot product between the filter and the local regions of the input. This process allows the layer to detect patterns and features within the input.

The convolutional layer's key components are:

Filter/Kernel: A small matrix of learnable weights. The size of the kernel typically ranges from 1x1 to 5x5 (commonly used sizes). During training, the neural network learns the optimal values of these kernel weights.

• Feature Map: As the kernel slides over the input data, it generates a feature map, which is a transformed version of the input. Each value in the feature map represents the activation of a specific feature detected by the corresponding kernel.
• Stride: The step size at which the kernel slides over the input data. A larger stride reduces the size of the feature map, while a smaller stride increases it.
• Padding: Sometimes, additional border pixels (usually zeros) are added around the input to preserve its spatial dimensions during convolution. Padding helps in maintaining the spatial information and mitigating the shrinking of the feature map.

 

The convolutional layer's key advantages are:

• Feature Learning: The layer automatically learns essential features from the input data through the convolution operation, enabling hierarchical feature representation.
• Parameter Sharing: CNNs use the same set of weights (kernel) for different regions of the input, which reduces the number of learnable parameters and helps in generalization.
• Translation Invariance: Due to the shared weights and local connectivity, CNNs are capable of recognizing features regardless of their location in the input.

 

Typically, multiple convolutional layers are stacked together in a CNN, followed by activation functions (e.g., ReLU), pooling layers (to reduce spatial dimensions), and fully connected layers for classification or regression tasks.

CNNs have been instrumental in achieving state-of-the-art performance in various computer vision tasks and have revolutionized the field of deep learning.

 

Pooling Layer

In Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), the Pooling Layer is a critical component used to reduce the spatial dimensions (width and height) of the input feature maps, while retaining essential information. Pooling is typically applied after the convolutional layers and is followed by additional convolutional layers in the CNN architecture.

The primary purpose of the Pooling Layer is to achieve two main goals:

• Spatial down-sampling: By reducing the spatial dimensions of the feature maps, the number of parameters and computations in the subsequent layers decreases. This leads to more efficient processing and faster training times.
• Feature invariance: Pooling helps the network become more robust to small spatial translations, distortions, and variations in the input. This invariance is achieved by considering local regions of the input feature map and summarizing the information within those regions.

The most common type of Pooling Layer is the Max Pooling Layer, which operates by dividing the input feature map into non-overlapping rectangular regions (typically 2x2 or 3x3) and selecting the maximum value from each region. The selected maximum value represents the most important feature in that region, effectively highlighting the presence of that feature in the input.

Example of 2x2 Max Pooling:

 

 

Other types of pooling layers include Average Pooling, which calculates the average value within each region, and Global Average Pooling, which takes the average across the entire feature map.

It's important to note that the Pooling Layer does not introduce any learnable parameters; it is a fixed operation applied during the forward pass. The CNN learns the optimal filters and parameters during the training process in the convolutional layers, and the pooling layer helps in summarizing the learned features efficiently.

 

Fully-Connected Layer

Fully-Connected Layer (FC layer) is a type of neural network layer that performs a standard feedforward operation. Unlike convolutional layers that are used to extract local features through convolutions, the fully-connected layer is responsible for learning global patterns and relationships from these extracted features.

After passing the input through several convolutional and pooling layers, the data is eventually flattened into a 1-dimensional vector. This flattened vector is then fed into the fully-connected layer. Each neuron in the FC layer is connected to every neuron in the previous layer, which means that the outputs from all the neurons in the previous layer contribute to the computation of each neuron in the FC layer.

Mathematically, the operation of a fully-connected layer can be represented as follows:

Output = Activation(W * Input + b)

where:

• Input: The flattened input vector from the preceding layer.
• W: Weight matrix of the fully-connected layer.
• b: Bias vector of the fully-connected layer.
• Activation: An activation function that introduces non-linearity into the network. Common choices include ReLU (Rectified Linear Unit), sigmoid, or tanh.

The purpose of the fully-connected layer is to learn complex patterns and representations from the extracted features, making it possible for the network to perform tasks such as classification, regression, or any other supervised learning tasks.

It's worth noting that fully-connected layers are typically used in the later stages of CNN architectures, after the initial convolutional and pooling layers have extracted relevant features. As CNNs have evolved, some modern architectures have started to use global average pooling or other techniques in place of fully-connected layers to reduce the number of parameters and enhance model interpretability.

 

Types of convolutional neural networks

Here are some types of CNNs commonly used in various computer vision tasks:

• LeNet: One of the earliest CNN architectures introduced by Yann LeCun in 1998, primarily used for character recognition.
• AlexNet: Introduced by Alex Krizhevsky et al. in 2012, this CNN achieved significant improvement over traditional methods in the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC). It was one of the first deep CNNs to gain widespread attention.
• VGGNet: Created by the Visual Geometry Group at the University of Oxford, VGGNet is known for its simplicity and uniform architecture, using small 3x3 convolutional filters throughout the network.
• GoogLeNet (Inception): Developed by Google researchers in 2014, this architecture introduced the concept of "Inception modules," which consist of multiple filters of different sizes, allowing for efficient information capture at different scales.
• ResNet (Residual Network): Introduced in 2015 by Kaiming He et al., ResNet introduced the concept of residual learning, which uses skip connections (shortcuts) to mitigate the vanishing gradient problem in very deep networks.
• DenseNet: Introduced in 2016, DenseNet connects each layer to every other layer in a feed-forward fashion, promoting feature reuse and reducing the number of parameters.
• MobileNet: Developed by Google in 2017, MobileNet is designed to be computationally efficient and well-suited for mobile and embedded devices.
• EfficientNet: Introduced in 2019, EfficientNet uses a compound scaling method to balance model size and computational efficiency, achieving state-of-the-art performance on various tasks.
• YOLO (You Only Look Once): This is not a single CNN architecture but a family of real-time object detection models known for their speed and accuracy. YOLO versions include YOLOv1, YOLOv2 (YOLO9000), YOLOv3, and YOLOv4.
• U-Net: U-Net is a specialized CNN architecture designed for semantic segmentation tasks, particularly in medical imaging applications.
• GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks): While not a traditional CNN, GANs utilize CNNs in their architecture to create realistic data from random noise. They consist of a generator and discriminator network that are trained adversarially.

These are just a few examples, and there are many other CNN architectures, each designed to address specific challenges and tasks in computer vision and image processing. The field of deep learning is continually evolving, and new architectures and improvements are regularly being proposed.