Online learning of the transfer matrix of dynamic scattering media: wavefront shaping meets multidimensional time series

Thanks to the latest advancements in wavefront shaping, optical methods have proven crucial to achieve imaging and control light in multiply scattering media, like biological tissues. However, the stability times of living biological specimens often prevent such methods from gaining insights into relevant functioning mechanisms in cellular and organ systems. Here we present a recursive and online optimization routine, borrowed from time series analysis, to optimally track the transfer matrix of dynamic scattering media over arbitrarily long timescales. While preserving the advantages of both optimization-based routines and transfer-matrix measurements, it operates in a memory-efficient manner. Because it can be readily implemented in existing wavefront shaping setups, featuring amplitude and/or phase modulation and phase-resolved or intensity-only acquisition, it paves the way for efficient optical investigations of living biological specimens.