DISTRIBUTION EVALUATION OF REFLECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS WITH QUASI-CONTINUOUS ULTRA-WIDEBAND PROBING SIGNAL

Subject of Research. The paper presents a new method for distribution evaluation of the reflective characteristics over a given volume — control zone. This distribution makes it possible to identify inhomogeneities, detect and evaluate the reflective characteristics of small-size objects in a homogeneous environment. The problem is solved using a probing ultra-wideband continuous signal and a set of receiving sensors. Method. The method is based on the principles of the tomography approach in signal processing — multichannel tomography. The control zone is divided into resolution elements. The distribution of the reflective characteristics is searched in a discretized form as the reflective characteristics vector with each component equal to reflective characteristic of corresponding resolution element. Specific effective scattering surfaces are considered as reflective characteristics of resolution elements. According to the principles of the multichannel tomography, a vector-matrix mapping equation is obtained, in which the reflection vector is the original, and the mapping is the measurements of the receiving sensors combined into a vector. This equation is the starting point for the reflection vector evaluation. Three variants of estimation are considered: the pseudo-inversion method, the pseudo-inversion method with averaging, and a new method based on correlation processing. Main Results. The analysis is carried out on the capabilities of the proposed method by computer experiments for the distribution evaluation of reflective characteristics by resolution elements, into which the area of responsibility is divided. Experiments have shown the advantage of the correlation method: this method, in contrast to pseudo-inversion methods, makes it possible to identify reflective resolution elements both when their number increases in the control zone and in the presence of the probing signal distortions. Practical Relevance. The results of the work can find application, for example, in the field of subsurface probing to identify inhomogeneities in a homogeneous medium.