FT-FEDTL: A fine-tuned feature-extracted deep transfer learning model for multi-class microwave-based brain tumor classification

The microwave brain imaging (MBI) system is an emerging technology used to detect brain tumors in their early stages. Multi-class microwave-based brain tumor (MBT) identification and classification are crucial due to the tumor's patterns and shape. Manual identification and categorization of the tumors from the images by physicians is a challenging task and consumes more time. Recently, to overcome these issues, the deep transfer learning (DTL) technique has been used to classify brain tumors efficiently. This paper proposes a Fine-tuned Feature Extracted Deep Transfer Learning Model called FT-FEDTL for multi-class MBT classification purposes. The main objective of this work is to suggest a better pathway for brain tumor diagnosis by designing an efficient DTL model that automatically identifies and categorizes the MBT images. The InceptionV3 architecture is utilized as a base for feature extraction in the proposed FT-FEDTL model. Thereafter, a fine-tuning method is applied to the additional five layers with hyperparameters. The fine-tuned layers are attached to the base model to enhance classification performance. The MBT data are collected from two sources and balanced by augmentation techniques to create a total of 4200 balanced datasets. Later, 80 % images are used for training, 20 % images are utilized for validation, and 80 samples of each class are used for testing the FT-FEDTL model for classifying tumors into six classes. We evaluated and compared the FT-FEDTL model with the three traditional non-CNN and seven pretrained models by applying an imbalanced and balanced dataset. The proposed model showed superior classification performance compared to other models for the balanced dataset. It attained an overall accuracy, recall, precision, specificity, and Fscore of 99.65 %, 99.16 %, 99.48 %, 99.10 %, and 99.23 %, respectively. The experimental outcomes ensure that the proposed model can be employed in biomedical applications to assist radiologists for multi-class MBT image classification purposes. The Anaconda distribution platform with Python 3.7 on the Windows 11 OS is used to implement the models.