Time-Domain Inverse Electromagnetic Scattering using FDTD and Gradient-based Minimization

Sammanfattning: The thesis addresses time-domain inverse electromagneticscattering for determining unknown characteristics of an objectfrom observations of the scattered .eld. Applications includenon-destructive characterization of media and optimization ofmaterial properties, for example the design of radar absorbingmaterials.A nother interesting application is the parameteroptimization of subcell models to avoid detailed modeling ofcomplex geometries. The inverse problem is formulated as an optimal controlproblem where the cost function to be minimized is thedi.erence between the estimated and observed .elds, and thecontrol parameters are the unknown object characteristics. Theproblem is solved in a deterministic gradient-basedoptimization algorithm using a parallel 2D FDTD scheme for thedirect problem.This approach is computationally intensive sincethe direct problem needs to be solved in every optimizationiteration in order to compute an estimated .eld.H ighlyaccurate analytical gradients are computed from the adjointformulation.In addition to giving better accuracy than .nitedi.erences, the analytical gradients also have the advantage ofonly requiring one direct and one adjoint problem to be solvedregardless of the number of parameters. When absorbing boundary conditions are used to truncate thecomputational domain, the equations are non-reversible and theentire time-history of the direct solution needs to be storedfor the gradient computation.Ho wever, using an additionaldirect simulation and a restart procedure it is possible tokeep the storage at an acceptable level. The inverse method has been successfully applied to a widerange of industrial problems within the European project,IMPACT (Inverse Methods for Wave Propagation Applications inTime-Domain).T he results presented here includecharacterization of layered dispersive media, determination ofparameters in subcell models for thin sheets and narrow slotsand optimization problems where the observed .eld is given bydesign objectives.