Aleksandr E. Kolesov

Michael V. Klibanov, Aleksandr E. Kolesov

A version of the so-called "convexification" numerical method for a coefficient inverse scattering problem for the 3D Hemholtz equation is developed analytically and tested numerically. Backscattering data are used, which result from a single direction of the propagation of the incident plane wave on an interval of frequencies. The method converges globally. The idea is to construct a weighted Tikhonov-like functional. The key element of this functional is the presence of the so-called Carleman Weight Function (CWF). This is the function which is involved in the Carleman estimate for the Laplace operator. This functional is strictly convex on any appropriate ball in a Hilbert space for an appropriate choice of the parameters of the CWF. Thus, both the absence of local minima and convergence of minimizers to the exact solution are guaranteed. Numerical tests demonstrate a good performance of the resulting algorithm. Unlikeprevious the so-called tail functions globally convergent method, we neither do not impose the smallness assumption of the interval of wavenumbers, nor we do not iterate with respect to the so-called tail functions.

Michael V. Klibanov, Aleksandr E. Kolesov, Anders Sullivan et al.

A new version of the convexification method is developed analytically and tested numerically for a 1-D coefficient inverse problem in the frequency domain. Unlike the previous version, this one does not use the so-called "tail function", which is a complement of a certain truncated integral with respect to the wave number. Globally strictly convex cost functional is constructed with the Carleman Weight Function. Global convergence of the gradient projection method to the correct solution is proved. Numerical tests are conducted for both computationally simulated and experimental data.

Michael V. Klibanov, Aleksandr E. Kolesov, Lam Nguyen et al.

A new numerical method is proposed for a 1-D inverse medium scattering problem with multi-frequency data. This method is based on the construction of a weighted cost functional. The weight is a Carleman Weight Function (CWF). In other words, this is the function, which is present in the Carleman estimate for the undelying differential operator. The presence of the CWF makes this functional strictly convex on any a priori chosen ball with the center at $\left\{ 0\right\} $ in an appropriate Hilbert space. Convergence of the gradient minimization method to the exact solution starting from any point of that ball is proven. Computational results for both computationally simulated and experimental data show a good accuracy of this method.

Dinh-Liem Nguyen, Michael V. Klibanov, Loc H. Nguyen et al.

We analyze in this paper the performance of a newly developed globally convergent numerical method for a coefficient inverse problem for the case of multi-frequency experimental backscatter data associated to a single incident wave. These data were collected using a microwave scattering facility at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The challenges for the inverse problem under the consideration are not only from its high nonlinearity and severe ill-posedness but also from the facts that the amount of the measured data is minimal and that these raw data are contaminated by a significant amount of noise, due to a non-ideal experimental setup. This setup is motivated by our target application in detecting and identifying explosives. We show in this paper how the raw data can be preprocessed and successfully inverted using our inversion method. More precisely, we are able to reconstruct the dielectric constants and the locations of the scattering objects with a good accuracy, without using any advanced \emph{a priori} knowledge of their physical and geometrical properties.

Aleksandr E. Kolesov, Michael V. Klibanov, Loc H. Nguyen et al.

The recently developed globally convergent numerical method for an inverse medium problem for the Helmholtz equation is tested on experimental data. The data were originally collected in the time domain, whereas the method works in the frequency domain with the multi-frequency data. Due to a huge discrepancy between the collected and computationally simulated data, the straightforward Fourier transform of the experimental data does not work. Hence, it is necessary to develop a heuristic data preprocessing procedure. This procedure is described. The preprocessed data are used as the input for the inversion algorithm. Numerical results demonstrate good accuracy in the reconstruction of both refracive indices and locations of targets. Furthermore, the reconstruction errors for refractive indices of dielectric targets are significantly less than errors of a posteriori direct measurements.

Michael V. Klibanov, Aleksandr E. Kolesov, Dinh-Liem Nguyen

We present in this paper a novel numerical reconstruction method for solving a 3D coefficient inverse problem with scattering data generated by a single direction of the incident plane wave. This inverse problem is well-known to be a highly nonlinear and ill-posed problem. Therefore, optimization-based reconstruction methods for solving this problem would typically suffer from the local-minima trapping and require strong a priori information of the solution. To avoid these problems, in our numerical method, we aim to construct a cost functional with a globally strictly convex property, whose minimizer can provide a good approximation for the exact solution of the inverse problem. The key ingredients for the construction of such functional are an integro-differential formulation of the inverse problem and a Carleman weight function. Under a (partial) finite difference approximation, the global strict convexity is proven using the tool of Carleman estimates. The global convergence of the gradient projection method to the exact solution is proven as well. We demonstrate the efficiency of our reconstruction method via a numerical study of experimental backscatter data for buried objects.