Tunable Domain Adaptation Using Unfolding

arXiv cs.LG / 3/31/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper addresses the common ML problem of poor cross-domain generalization when data distributions shift, using regression-focused domain adaptation to handle factors like varying noise levels.
  • It proposes two interpretable “unrolled network” methods that adapt by tuning parameters during inference based on domain variables rather than relying solely on separate per-domain models or a single joint model.
  • P-TDA performs tunable adaptation using known domain parameters to dynamically adjust the model, while DD-TDA infers adaptation needs directly from the input data.
  • Experiments on compressed sensing and calibration/reconstruction tasks (including noise-adaptive sparse recovery and domain-adaptive gain/phase calibration) show improved or comparable performance to domain-specific models and better results than joint-training baselines.
  • The work argues that unrolled (optimization-inspired) architectures can provide effective, controllable, and more interpretable domain adaptation for regression settings.

Abstract

Machine learning models often struggle to generalize across domains with varying data distributions, such as differing noise levels, leading to degraded performance. Traditional strategies like personalized training, which trains separate models per domain, and joint training, which uses a single model for all domains, have significant limitations in flexibility and effectiveness. To address this, we propose two novel domain adaptation methods for regression tasks based on interpretable unrolled networks--deep architectures inspired by iterative optimization algorithms. These models leverage the functional dependence of select tunable parameters on domain variables, enabling controlled adaptation during inference. Our methods include Parametric Tunable-Domain Adaptation (P-TDA), which uses known domain parameters for dynamic tuning, and Data-Driven Tunable-Domain Adaptation (DD-TDA), which infers domain adaptation directly from input data. We validate our approach on compressed sensing problems involving noise-adaptive sparse signal recovery, domain-adaptive gain calibration, and domain-adaptive phase retrieval, demonstrating improved or comparable performance to domain-specific models while surpassing joint training baselines. This work highlights the potential of unrolled networks for effective, interpretable domain adaptation in regression settings.