# Blind Super-Resolution via Meta-learning and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.08896 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08896/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 39 of its 72 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Jun 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 39)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07636/) (2021)
- [Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Residual Channel Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.02758/) (2018)
- [Deep Image Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10925/) (2017)
- [Accurate Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04587/) (2015)
- [Designing a Practical Degradation Model for Deep Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14006/) (2021)
- [DeblurGAN: Blind Motion Deblurring Using Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07064/) (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)
- [Learning a Single Convolutional Super-Resolution Network for Multiple Degradations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.06116/) (2017)
- [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)
- [Fast and Accurate Image Super-Resolution with Deep Laplacian Pyramid Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.01992/) (2017)
- [Unfolding the Alternating Optimization for Blind Super Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02631/) (2020)
- [Meta-Transfer Learning for Zero-Shot Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.12213/) (2020)
- ["Double-DIP": Unsupervised Image Decomposition via Coupled Deep-Image-Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00467/) (2018)
- [Neural Blind Deconvolution Using Deep Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.02197/) (2019)
- [Deep Plug-and-Play Super-Resolution for Arbitrary Blur Kernels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.12529/) (2019)
- [Lite-HRNet: A Lightweight High-Resolution Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06403/) (2021)
- [Boosting Few-Shot Learning With Adaptive Margin Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.13826/) (2020)
- [Flow-based Kernel Prior with Application to Blind Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15977/) (2021)
- [Unified Dynamic Convolutional Network for Super-Resolution with Variational Degradations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06965/) (2020)
- [Densely Residual Laplacian Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.12021/) (2019)
- [Mutual Affine Network for Spatially Variant Kernel Estimation in Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05302/) (2021)
- [MIMO Channel Estimation using Score-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.07122/) (2022)
- [Reflash Dropout in Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12089/) (2021)
- [KOALAnet: Blind Super-Resolution using Kernel-Oriented Adaptive Local Adjustment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08103/) (2020)
- [Knowledge Distillation based Degradation Estimation for Blind Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.16928/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [ATRNet-STAR: A Large Dataset and Benchmark Towards Remote Sensing Object Recognition in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13354/) (2025)
- [Light-ResKAN: A Parameter-Sharing Lightweight KAN with Gram Polynomials for Efficient SAR Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01903/) (2026)
- [KernelFusion: Assumption-Free Blind Super-Resolution via Patch Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21907/) (2025)
- [Frequency-Integrated Transformer for Arbitrary-Scale Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18818/) (2025)
- [History-Augmented Contrastive Learning With Soft Mixture of Experts for Blind Super-Resolution of Planetary Remote Sensing Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20045/) (2025)
- [Closing the Approximation Gap of Partial AUC Optimization: A Tale of Two Formulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.01213/) (2025)
- [Unlocking Optical Prior: Spectrum-Guided Knowledge Transfer for SAR Generalized Category Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22174/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Learning-based approaches have witnessed great successes in blind single image super-resolution (SISR) tasks, however, handcrafted kernel priors and learning based kernel priors are typically required. In this paper, we propose a Meta-learning and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based SISR approach to learn kernel priors from organized randomness. In concrete, a lightweight network is adopted as kernel generator, and is optimized via learning from the MCMC simulation on random Gaussian distributions. This procedure provides an approximation for the rational blur kernel, and introduces a network-level Langevin dynamics into SISR optimization processes, which contributes to preventing bad local optimal solutions for kernel estimation. Meanwhile, a meta-learning-based alternating optimization procedure is proposed to optimize the kernel generator and image restorer, respectively. In contrast to the conventional alternating minimization strategy, a meta-learning-based framework is applied to learn an adaptive optimization strategy, which is less-greedy and results in better convergence performance. These two procedures are iteratively processed in a plug-and-play fashion, for the first time, realizing a learning-based but plug-and-play blind SISR solution in unsupervised inference. Extensive simulations demonstrate the superior performance and generalization ability of the proposed approach when comparing with state-of-the-arts on synthesis and real-world datasets. The code is available at https://github.com/XYLGroup/MLMC.