Inverse Solutions for Multiple Scattering in Inhomogeneous Acoustic Media

Abstract

Recent advances in the theory of quantitative acoustic scatter imaging have been made under the assumption that:(i) the acoustic continuum has uniform, frequency dependent absorption characteristics and (ii) the scattering of acoustic radiation from material inhomogeneities is weak enough for the first Born or Rytov approximations to hold. These scatter imaging techniques all depend on extensive computation with aquired data bases in order to generate the final image. Jones et al. (1982) have demonstrated that the final result and hence, image fidelity, is highly dependant on the physical model assumed for the propogation and scattering of acoustic waves in the material under investigation. The possibility that even high resolution data aquisition and computational methods will lead to manifestly inaccurate and semi-quantitative images has been called image ‘fuzziness’.