Analysis on Strategies for Modeling the Wave Equation with Physics-Informed Neural Networks

The physics-informed neural network (PINN) has been proposed to overcome the limitations of various numerical methods used to solve partial differential equations (PDEs) and the drawbacks of purely data-driven machine learning. The PINN directly applies PDEs to the construction of the loss function, introducing physical constraints to machine learning training. This technique can also be applied to wave equation modeling. However, to solve the wave equation using the PINN, second-order differentiations with respect to input data must be performed during neural network training, and the resulting wavefields contain complex dynamical phenomena, requiring careful strategies. This tutorial elucidates the fundamental concepts of the PINN and discusses considerations for wave equation modeling using the PINN approach. These considerations include spatial coordinate normalization, the selection of activation functions, and strategies for incorporating physics loss. Our experimental results demonstrated that normalizing the spatial coordinates of the training data leads to a more accurate reflection of initial conditions in neural network training for wave equation modeling. Furthermore, the characteristics of various functions were compared to select an appropriate activation function for wavefield prediction using neural networks. These comparisons focused on their differentiation with respect to input data and their convergence properties. Finally, the results of two scenarios for incorporating physics loss into the loss function during neural network training were compared. Through numerical experiments, a curriculum-based learning strategy, applying physics loss after the initial training steps, was more effective than utilizing physics loss from the early training steps. In addition, the effectiveness of the PINN technique was confirmed by comparing these results with those of training without any use of physics loss.