An analytical approach to estimate the number of small scatterers in 2D inverse scattering problems

摘要

This paper presents an analytical method to estimate the location and number of actual small targets in 2D inverse scattering problems. This method is motivated from the exact maximum likelihood estimation of signal parameters in white Gaussian noise for the linear data model. In the first stage, the method uses the MUSIC algorithm to acquire all possible target locations and in the next stage, it employs an analytical formula that works as a spatial filter to determine which target locations are associated to the actual ones. The ability of the method is examined for both the Born and multiple scattering cases and for the cases of well-resolved and non-resolved targets. Many numerical simulations using both the coincident and non-coincident arrays demonstrate that the proposed method can detect the number of actual targets even in the case of very noisy data and when the targets are closely located. Using the experimental microwave data sets, we further show that this method is successful in specifying the number of small inclusions.