# Deep learning-based blind image super-resolution with iterative kernel reconstruction and noise estimation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16564 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16564/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 31 of its 50 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Apr 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Photo-Realistic Single Image Super-Resolution Using a Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04802/) (2016)
- [SwinIR: Image Restoration Using Swin Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10257/) (2021)
- [Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Residual Channel Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.02758/) (2018)
- [ESRGAN: Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00219/) (2018)
- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [Accurate Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04587/) (2015)
- [Residual Dense Network for Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.08797/) (2018)
- [Designing a Practical Degradation Model for Deep Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14006/) (2021)
- [Accelerating the Super-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.00367/) (2016)
- [Cascaded Pyramid Network for Multi-Person Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07319/) (2017)
- ["Zero-Shot" Super-Resolution using Deep Internal Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.06087/) (2017)
- [Deep Unfolding Network for Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10428/) (2020)
- [Deep Back-Projection Networks For Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.02735/) (2018)
- [Blind Super-Resolution With Iterative Kernel Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03377/) (2019)
- [Meta-SR: A Magnification-Arbitrary Network for Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.00875/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Degradation Representation Learning for Blind Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00416/) (2021)
- [Blind Super-Resolution Kernel Estimation using an Internal-GAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06581/) (2019)
- [RankSRGAN: Generative Adversarial Networks with Ranker for Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06382/) (2019)
- [Unfolding the Alternating Optimization for Blind Super Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02631/) (2020)
- [Deep Plug-and-Play Super-Resolution for Arbitrary Blur Kernels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.12529/) (2019)
- [Flow-based Kernel Prior with Application to Blind Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15977/) (2021)
- [Group Sparsity: The Hinge Between Filter Pruning and Decomposition for Network Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08935/) (2020)
- [Unsupervised Learning for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.09629/) (2019)
- [Local-Global Context Aware Transformer for Language-Guided Video Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09773/) (2022)
- [KOALAnet: Blind Super-Resolution using Kernel-Oriented Adaptive Local Adjustment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08103/) (2020)
- [Cascaded Refinement Network for Point Cloud Completion with Self-supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.08719/) (2020)
- [Deep Generative Adversarial Residual Convolutional Networks for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00953/) (2020)
- [Fine-grained Attention and Feature-sharing Generative Adversarial Networks for Single Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.10773/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Adaptive Blind Super-Resolution Network for Spatial-Specific and Spatial-Agnostic Degradations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07705/) (2025)
- [One Model for Two Tasks: Cooperatively Recognizing and Recovering Low-Resolution Scene Text Images by Iterative Mutual Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14483/) (2024)
- [KernelFusion: Assumption-Free Blind Super-Resolution via Patch Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21907/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Blind single image super-resolution (SISR) is a challenging task in image processing due to the ill-posed nature of the inverse problem. Complex degradations present in real life images make it difficult to solve this problem using na"ive deep learning approaches, where models are often trained on synthetically generated image pairs. Most of the effort so far has been focused on solving the inverse problem under some constraints, such as for a limited space of blur kernels and/or assuming noise-free input images. Yet, there is a gap in the literature to provide a well-generalized deep learning-based solution that performs well on images with unknown and highly complex degradations. In this paper, we propose IKR-Net (Iterative Kernel Reconstruction Network) for blind SISR. In the proposed approach, kernel and noise estimation and high-resolution image reconstruction are carried out iteratively using dedicated deep models. The iterative refinement provides significant improvement in both the reconstructed image and the estimated blur kernel even for noisy inputs. IKR-Net provides a generalized solution that can handle any type of blur and level of noise in the input low-resolution image. IKR-Net achieves state-of-the-art results in blind SISR, especially for noisy images with motion blur.