Staying on high of a fast-growing analysis area isn’t straightforward.
I face this problem firsthand as a practitioner in Physics-Knowledgeable Neural Networks (PINNs). New papers, be they algorithmic developments or cutting-edge functions, are printed at an accelerating tempo by each academia and business. Whereas it’s thrilling to see this speedy growth, it inevitably raises a urgent query:
How can one keep knowledgeable with out spending numerous hours sifting by papers?
That is the place I’ve discovered evaluate papers to be exceptionally worthwhile. Good evaluate papers are efficient instruments that distill important insights and spotlight vital developments. They’re big-time savers guiding us by the flood of knowledge.
On this weblog publish, I want to share with you my private, curated checklist of must-read evaluate papers on PINNs, which can be particularly influential for my very own understanding and use of PINNs. These papers cowl key elements of PINNs, together with algorithmic developments, implementation finest practices, and real-world functions.
Along with what’s accessible in current literature, I’ve included one among my very own evaluate papers, which supplies a complete evaluation of widespread practical utilization patterns of PINNs — a sensible perspective usually lacking from educational critiques. This evaluation is predicated on my evaluate of round 200 arXiv papers on PINNs throughout varied engineering domains up to now 3 years and might function a vital information for practitioners seeking to deploy these methods to sort out real-world challenges.
For every evaluate paper, I’ll clarify why it deserves your consideration by explaining its distinctive perspective and indicating sensible takeaways that you may profit from instantly.
Whether or not you’re simply getting began with PINNs, utilizing them to sort out real-world issues, or exploring new analysis instructions, I hope this assortment makes navigating the busy area of PINN analysis simpler for you.
Let’s lower by the complexity collectively and concentrate on what actually issues.
1️⃣ Scientific Machine Studying by Physics-Knowledgeable Neural Networks: The place we’re and what’s subsequent
📄 Paper at a look
🔍 What it covers
- Authors: S. Cuomo, V. Schiano di Cola, F. Giampaolo, G. Rozza, M. Raissi, and F. Piccialli
- Yr: 2022
- Hyperlink: arXiv
This evaluate is structured round key themes in PINNs: the elemental elements that outline their structure, theoretical elements of their studying course of, and their utility to numerous computing challenges in engineering. The paper additionally explores the accessible toolsets, rising developments, and future instructions.

✨ What’s distinctive
This evaluate paper stands out within the following methods:
- The most effective introductions to PINN fundamentals. This paper takes a well-paced strategy to explaining PINNs from the bottom up. Part 2 systematically dissects the constructing blocks of a PINN, overlaying varied underlying neural community architectures and their related traits, how PDE constraints are included, widespread coaching methodologies, and studying principle (convergence, error evaluation, and so forth.) of PINNs.
- Placing PINNs in historic context. Somewhat than merely presenting PINNs as a standalone answer, the paper traces their growth from earlier work on utilizing deep studying to unravel differential equations. This historic framing is efficacious as a result of it helps demystify PINNs by displaying that they’re an evolution of earlier concepts, and it makes it simpler for practitioners to see what alternate options can be found.
- Equation-driven group. As an alternative of simply classifying PINN analysis by scientific domains (e.g., geoscience, materials science, and so forth.) as many different critiques do, this paper categorizes PINNs primarily based on the forms of differential equations (e.g., diffusion issues, advection issues, and so forth.) they resolve. This equation-first perspective encourages information switch as the identical set of PDEs may very well be used throughout a number of scientific domains. As well as, it makes it simpler for practitioners to see the strengths and weaknesses of PINNs when coping with several types of differential equations.
🛠 Sensible goodies
Past its theoretical insights, this evaluate paper presents instantly helpful assets for practitioners:
- An entire implementation instance. In part 3.4, this paper walks by a full PINN implementation to unravel a 1D Nonlinear Schrödinger equation. It covers translating equations into PINN formulations, dealing with boundary and preliminary situations, defining neural community architectures, selecting coaching methods, deciding on collocation factors, and making use of optimization strategies. All implementation particulars are clearly documented for straightforward reproducibility. The paper compares PINN efficiency by various completely different hyperparameters, which may supply instantly relevant insights in your personal PINN experiments.
- Out there frameworks and software program instruments. Desk 3 compiles a complete checklist of main PINN toolkits, with detailed device descriptions offered in part 4.3. The thought-about backends embrace not solely Tensorflow and PyTorch but additionally Julia and Jax. This side-by-side comparability of various frameworks is particularly helpful for choosing the right device in your wants.
💡Who would profit
- This evaluate paper advantages anybody new to PINNs and on the lookout for a transparent, structured introduction.
- Engineers and builders on the lookout for sensible implementation steerage would discover the real looking, hands-on demo, and the thorough comparability of current PINN frameworks most attention-grabbing. Moreover, they will discover related prior work on differential equations just like their present downside, which presents insights they will leverage in their very own problem-solving.
- Researchers investigating theoretical elements of PINN convergence, optimization, or effectivity may also drastically profit from this paper.
2️⃣ From PINNs to PIKANs: Current Advances in Physics-Knowledgeable Machine Studying
📄 Paper at a look
- Authors: J. D. Toscano, V. Oommen, A. J. Varghese, Z. Zou, N. A. Daryakenari, C. Wu, and G. E. Karniadakis
- Yr: 2024
- Hyperlink: arXiv
🔍 What it covers
This paper supplies one of many latest overviews of the newest developments in PINNs. It emphasises enhancements in community design, characteristic growth, optimization methods, uncertainty quantification, and theoretical insights. The paper additionally surveys key functions throughout a spread of domains.

✨ What’s distinctive
This evaluate paper stands out within the following methods:
- A structured taxonomy of algorithmic developments. Some of the recent contributions of this paper is its taxonomy of algorithmic developments. This new taxonomy scheme elegantly categorizes all of the developments into three core areas: (1) illustration mannequin, (2) dealing with governing equations, and (3) optimization course of. This construction supplies a transparent framework for understanding each present developments and potential instructions for future analysis. As well as, the illustrations used within the paper are top-notch and simply digestible.

- Highlight on Physics-informed Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks (KAN). KAN, a brand new structure primarily based on the Kolmogorov–Arnold illustration theorem, is at present a scorching subject in deep studying. Within the PINN neighborhood, some work has already been finished to exchange the multilayer perceptions (MLP) illustration with KANs to achieve extra expressiveness and coaching effectivity. The neighborhood lacks a complete evaluate of this new line of analysis. This evaluate paper (part 3.1) precisely fills within the hole.
- Assessment on uncertainty quantification (UQ) in PINNs. UQ is crucial for the dependable and reliable deployment of PINNs when tackling real-world engineering functions. In part 5, this paper supplies a devoted part on UQ, explaining the widespread sources of uncertainty in fixing differential equations with PINNs and reviewing methods for quantifying prediction confidence.
- Theoretical advances in PINN coaching dynamics. In observe, coaching PINNs is non-trivial. Practitioners are sometimes puzzled by why PINNs coaching generally fail, or how they need to be skilled optimally. In part 6.2, this paper supplies one of the vital detailed and up-to-date discussions on this side, overlaying the Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) evaluation of PINNs, data bottleneck principle, and multi-objective optimization challenges.
🛠 Sensible goodies
Though this evaluate paper leans in the direction of the theory-heavy facet, two notably worthwhile elements stand out from a sensible perspective:
- A timeline of algorithmic advances in PINNs. In Appendix A Desk, this paper tracks the milestones of key developments in PINNs, from the unique PINN formulation to the latest extensions to KANs. In case you’re engaged on algorithmic enhancements, this timeline offers you a transparent view of what’s already been finished. In case you’re fighting PINN coaching or accuracy, you need to use this desk to search out current strategies that may resolve your problem.
- A broad overview of PINN functions throughout domains. In comparison with all the opposite critiques, this paper strives to offer the most complete and up to date protection of PINN functions in not solely the engineering domains but additionally different less-covered fields corresponding to finance. Practitioners can simply discover prior works carried out of their domains and draw inspiration.
💡Who would profit
- For practitioners working in safety-critical fields that want confidence intervals or reliability estimates on their PINN predictions, the dialogue on UQ can be helpful. If you’re fighting PINN coaching instability, sluggish convergence, or surprising failures, the dialogue on PINN coaching dynamics may also help unpack the theoretical causes behind these points.
- Researchers might discover this paper particularly attention-grabbing due to the brand new taxonomy, which permits them to see patterns and establish gaps and alternatives for novel contributions. As well as, the evaluate of cutting-edge work on PI-KAN can be inspiring.
3️⃣ Physics-Knowledgeable Neural Networks: An Software-Centric Information
📄 Paper at a look
- Authors: S. Guo (this writer)
- Yr: 2024
- Hyperlink: Medium
🔍 What it covers
This text critiques how PINNs are used to sort out several types of engineering duties. For every activity class, the article discusses the issue assertion, why PINNs are helpful, how PINNs might be carried out to deal with the issue, and is adopted by a concrete use case printed within the literature.

✨ What’s distinctive
In contrast to most critiques that categorize PINN functions both primarily based on the kind of differential equations solved or particular engineering domains, this text picks an angle that practitioners care about essentially the most: the engineering duties solved by PINNs. This work is predicated on reviewing papers on PINN case research scattered in varied engineering domains. The result is an inventory of distilled recurring practical utilization patterns of PINNs:
- Predictive modeling and simulations, the place PINNs are leveraged for dynamical system forecasting, coupled system modeling, and surrogate modeling.
- Optimization, the place PINNs are generally employed to attain environment friendly design optimization, inverse design, mannequin predictive management, and optimized sensor placement.
- Information-driven insights, the place PINNs are used to establish the unknown parameters or practical types of the system, in addition to to assimilate observational information to higher estimate the system states.
- Information-driven enhancement, the place PINNs are used to reconstruct the sector and improve the decision of the observational information.
- Monitoring, diagnostic, and well being evaluation, the place PINNs are leveraged to behave as digital sensors, anomaly detectors, well being displays, and predictive maintainers.
🛠 Sensible goodies
This text locations practitioners’ wants on the forefront. Whereas most current evaluate papers merely reply the query, “Has PINN been utilized in my area?”, practitioners usually search extra particular steerage: “Has PINN been used for the kind of downside I’m making an attempt to unravel?”. That is exactly what this text tries to deal with.
By utilizing the proposed five-category practical classification, practitioners can conveniently map their issues to those classes, see how others have solved them, and what labored and what didn’t. As an alternative of reinventing the wheel, practitioners can leverage established use circumstances and adapt confirmed options to their very own issues.
💡Who would profit
This evaluate is finest for practitioners who wish to see how PINNs are literally being utilized in the actual world. It can be notably worthwhile for cross-disciplinary innovation, as practitioners can study from options developed in different fields.
4️⃣ An Skilled’s Information to Coaching Physics-informed Neural Networks
📄 Paper at a look
- Authors: S. Wang, S. Sankaran, H. Wang, P. Perdikaris
- Yr: 2023
- Hyperlink: arXiv
🔍 What it covers
Though it doesn’t market itself as a “commonplace” evaluate, this paper goes all in on offering a complete handbook for coaching PINNs. It presents an in depth set of finest practices for coaching physics-informed neural networks (PINNs), addressing points like spectral bias, unbalanced loss phrases, and causality violations. It additionally introduces difficult benchmarks and intensive ablation research to exhibit these strategies.

✨ What’s distinctive
- A unified “professional’s information”. The principle authors are lively researchers in PINNs, working extensively on enhancing PINN coaching effectivity and mannequin accuracy for the previous years. This paper is a distilled abstract of the authors’ previous work, synthesizing a broad vary of current PINN methods (e.g., Fourier characteristic embeddings, adaptive loss weighting, causal coaching) right into a cohesive coaching pipeline. This looks like having a mentor who tells you precisely what does and doesn’t work with PINNs.
- A radical hyperparameter tuning research. This paper conducts varied experiments to point out how completely different tweaks (e.g., completely different architectures, coaching schemes, and so forth.) play out on completely different PDE duties. Their ablation research present exactly which strategies transfer the needle, and by how a lot.
- PDE benchmarks. The paper compiles a set of difficult PDE benchmarks and presents state-of-the-art outcomes that PINNs can obtain.
🛠 Sensible goodies
- An issue-solution cheat sheet. This paper completely paperwork varied methods addressing widespread PINN coaching pain-points. Every approach is clearly introduced utilizing a structured format: the why (motivation), how (how the strategy addresses the issue), and what (the implementation particulars). This makes it very straightforward for practitioners to establish the “treatment” primarily based on the “signs” noticed of their PINN coaching course of. What’s nice is that the authors transparently mentioned potential pitfalls of every strategy, permitting practitioners to make well-informed selections and efficient trade-offs.
- Empirical insights. The paper shares worthwhile empirical insights obtained from intensive hyperparameter tuning experiments. It presents sensible steerage on selecting appropriate hyperparameters, e.g., community architectures and studying fee schedules, and demonstrates how these parameters work together with the superior PINN coaching methods proposed.
- Prepared-to-use library. The paper is accompanied by an optimized JAX library that practitioners can instantly undertake or customise. The library helps multi-GPU environments and is prepared for scaling to large-scale issues.
💡Who would profit
- Practitioners who’re fighting unstable or sluggish PINN coaching can discover many sensible methods to repair widespread pathologies. They will additionally profit from the simple templates (in JAX) to shortly adapt PINNs to their very own PDE setups.
- Researchers on the lookout for difficult benchmark issues and aiming to benchmark new PINN concepts in opposition to well-documented baselines will discover this paper particularly helpful.
5️⃣ Area-Particular Assessment Papers
Past common critiques in PINNs, there are a number of good evaluate papers that concentrate on particular scientific and engineering domains. In case you’re working in one among these fields, these critiques may present a deeper dive into finest practices and cutting-edge functions.
1. Warmth Switch Issues
Paper: Physics-Knowledgeable Neural Networks for Warmth Switch Issues
The paper supplies an application-centric dialogue on how PINNs can be utilized to sort out varied thermal engineering issues, together with inverse warmth switch, convection-dominated flows, and phase-change modeling. It highlights real-world challenges corresponding to lacking boundary situations, sensor-driven inverse issues, and adaptive cooling system design. The commercial case research associated to energy electronics is especially insightful for understanding the utilization of PINNs in observe.
2. Energy Programs
Paper: Purposes of Physics-Knowledgeable Neural Networks in Energy Programs — A Assessment
This paper presents a structured overview of how PINNs are utilized to vital energy grid challenges, together with state/parameter estimation, dynamic evaluation, energy move calculation, optimum energy move (OPF), anomaly detection, and mannequin synthesis. For every kind of utility, the paper discusses the shortcomings of conventional energy system options and explains why PINNs may very well be advantageous in addressing these shortcomings. This comparative abstract is helpful for understanding the motivation for adopting PINNs.
3. Fluid Mechanics
Paper: Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) for fluid mechanics: A evaluate
This paper explored three detailed case research that exhibit PINNs utility in fluid dynamics: (1) 3D wake move reconstruction utilizing sparse 2D velocity information, (2) inverse issues in compressible move (e.g., shock wave prediction with minimal boundary information), and (3) biomedical move modeling, the place PINNs infer thrombus materials properties from phase-field information. The paper highlights how PINNs overcome limitations in conventional CFD, e.g., mesh dependency, costly information assimilation, and issue dealing with ill-posed inverse issues.
4. Additive Manufacturing
This paper examines how PINNs deal with vital challenges particular to additive manufacturing course of prediction or monitoring, together with temperature area prediction, fluid dynamics modeling, fatigue life estimation, accelerated finite aspect simulations, and course of traits prediction.
6️⃣ Conclusion
On this weblog publish, we went by a curated checklist of evaluate papers on PINNs, overlaying elementary theoretical insights, the newest algorithmic developments, and sensible application-oriented views. For every paper, we highlighted distinctive contributions, key takeaways, and the viewers that might profit essentially the most from these insights. I hope this curated assortment may also help you higher navigate the evolving area of PINNs.