Introduction to the special issue on electromagnetic inverse problems: emerging methods and novel applications

Abstract

Inverse problems in electromagnetics have a long history and have stimulated exciting research over many decades. New applications and solution methods are still emerging, providing a rich source of challenging topics for further investigation. The purpose of this special issue is to combine descriptions of several such developments that are expected to have the potential to fundamentally fuel new research, and to provide an overview of novel methods and applications for electromagnetic inverse problems.There have been several special sections published in Inverse Problems over the last decade addressing fully, or partly, electromagnetic inverse problems. Examples are: Electromagnetic imaging and inversion of the Earth's subsurface (Guest Editors: D Lesselier and T Habashy) October 2000 Testing inversion algorithms against experimental data (Guest Editors: K Belkebir and M Saillard) December 2001 Electromagnetic and ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (Guest Editors: D Lesselier and J Bowler) December 2002 Electromagnetic characterization of buried obstacles (Guest Editors: D Lesselier and W C Chew) December 2004 Testing inversion algorithms against experimental data: inhomogeneous targets (Guest Editors: K Belkebir and M Saillard) December 2005 Testing inversion algorithms against experimental data: 3D targets (Guest Editors: A Litman and L Crocco) February 2009 In a certain sense, the current issue can be understood as a continuation of this series of special sections on electromagnetic inverse problems. On the other hand, its focus is intended to be more general than previous ones. Instead of trying to cover a well-defined, somewhat specialized research topic as completely as possible, this issue aims to show the broad range of techniques and applications that are relevant to electromagnetic imaging nowadays, which may serve as a source of inspiration and encouragement for all those entering this active and rapidly developing research area.Also, the construction of this special issue is likely to have been different from preceding ones. In addition to the invitations sent to specific research groups involved in electromagnetic inverse problems, the Guest Editors also solicited recommendations, from a large number of experts, of potential authors who were thereupon encouraged to contribute. Moreover, an open call for contributions was published on the homepage of Inverse Problems in order to attract as wide a scope of contributions as possible.This special issue's attempt at generality might also define its limitations: by no means could this collection of papers be exhaustive or complete, and as Guest Editors we are well aware that many exciting topics and potential contributions will be missing. This, however, also determines its very special flavor: besides addressing electromagnetic inverse problems in a broad sense, there were only a few restrictions on the contributions considered for this section. One requirement was plausible evidence of either novelty or the emergent nature of the technique or application described, judged mainly by the referees, and in some cases by the Guest Editors. The technical quality of the contributions always remained a stringent condition of acceptance, final adjudication (possibly questionable either way, not always positive) being made in most cases once a thorough revision process had been carried out. Therefore, we hope that the final result presented here constitutes an interesting collection of novel ideas and applications, properly refereed and edited, which will find its own readership and which can stimulate significant new research in the topics represented.Overall, as Guest Editors, we feel quite fortunate to have obtained such a strong response to the call for this issue and to have a really wide-ranging collection of high-quality contributions which, indeed, can be read from the first to the last page with sustained enthusiasm. A large number of applications and techniques is represented, overall via 16 contributions with 45 authors in total. This shows, in our opinion, that electromagnetic imaging and inversion remain amongst the most challenging and active research areas in applied inverse problems today. Below, we give a brief overview of the contributions included in this issue, ordered alphabetically by the surname of the leading author.1. The complexity of handling potential randomness of the source in an inverse scattering problem is not minor, and the literature is far from being replete in this configuration. The contribution by G Bao, S N Chow, P Li and H Zhou, `Numerical solution of an inverse medium scattering problem with a stochastic source', exemplifies how to hybridize Wiener chaos expansion with a recursive linearization method in order to solve the stochastic problem as a set of decoupled deterministic ones. 2. In cases where the forward problem is expensive to evaluate, database methods might become a reliable method of choice, while enabling one to deliver more information on the inversion itself. The contribution by S Bilicz, M Lambert and Sz Gyimóthy, `Kriging-based generation of optimal databases as forward and inverse surrogate models', describes such a technique which uses kriging for constructing an efficient database with the goal of achieving an equidistant distribution of points in the measurement space. 3. Anisotropy remains a considerable challenge in electromagnetic imaging, which is tackled in the contribution by F Cakoni, D Colton, P Monk and J Sun, `The inverse electromagnetic scattering problem for anisotropic media', via the fact that transmission eigenvalues can be retrieved from a far-field scattering pattern, yielding, in particular, lower and upper bounds of the index of refraction of the unknown (dielectric anisotropic) scatterer. 4. So-called subspace optimization methods (SOM) have attracted a lot of interest recently in many fields. The contribution by X Chen, `Subspace-based optimization method for inverse scattering problems with an inhomogeneous background medium', illustrates how to address a realistic situation in which the medium containing the unknown obstacles is not homogeneous, via blending a properly developed SOM with a finite-element approach to the required Green's functions. 5. H Egger, M Hanke, C Schneider, J Schöberl and S Zaglmayr, in their contribution `Adjoint-based sampling methods for electromagnetic scattering', show how to efficiently develop sampling methods without explicit knowledge of the dyadic Green's function once an adjoint problem has been solved at much lower computational cost. This is demonstrated by examples in demanding propagative and diffusive situations. 6. Passive sensor arrays can be employed to image reflectors from ambient noise via proper migration of cross-correlation matrices into their embedding medium. This is investigated, and resolution, in particular, is considered in detail, as a function of the characteristics of the sensor array and those of the noise, in the contribution by J Garnier and G Papanicolaou, `Resolution analysis for imaging with noise'. 7. A direct reconstruction technique based on the conformal mapping theorem is proposed and investigated in depth in the contribution by H Haddar and R Kress, `Conformal mapping and impedance tomography'. This paper expands on previous work, with inclusions in homogeneous media, convergence results, and numerical illustrations. 8. The contribution by T Hohage and S Langer, `Acceleration techniques for regularized Newton methods applied to electromagnetic inverse medium scattering problems', focuses on a spectral preconditioner intended to accelerate regularized Newton methods as employed for the retrieval of a local inhomogeneity in a three-dimensional vector electromagnetic case, while also illustrating the implementation of a Lepskiĭ-type stopping rule outsmarting a traditional discrepancy principle. 9. Geophysical applications are a rich source of practically relevant inverse problems. The contribution by M Li, A Abubakar and T Habashy, `Application of a two-and-a-half dimensional model-based algorithm to crosswell electromagnetic data inversion', deals with a model-based inversion technique for electromagnetic imaging which addresses novel challenges such as multi-physics inversion, and incorporation of prior knowledge, such as in hydrocarbon recovery. 10. Non-stationary inverse problems, considered as a special class of Bayesian inverse problems, are framed via an orthogonal decomposition representation in the contribution by A Lipponen, A Seppänen and J P Kaipio, `Reduced order estimation of nonstationary flows with electrical impedance tomography'. The goal is to simultaneously estimate, from electrical impedance tomography data, certain characteristics of the Navier--Stokes fluid flow model together with time-varying concentration distribution. 11. Non-iterative imaging methods of thin, penetrable cracks, based on asymptotic expansion of the scattering amplitude and analysis of the multi-static response matrix, are discussed in the contribution by W-K Park, `On the imaging of thin dielectric inclusions buried within a half-space', completing, for a shallow burial case at multiple frequencies, the direct imaging of small obstacles (here, along their transverse dimension), MUSIC and non-MUSIC type indicator functions being used for that purpose. 12. The contribution by R Potthast, `A study on orthogonality sampling' envisages quick localization and shaping of obstacles from (portions of) far-field scattering patterns collected at one or more time-harmonic frequencies, via the simple calculation (and summation) of scalar products between those patterns and a test function. This is numerically exemplified for Neumann/Dirichlet boundary conditions and homogeneous/heterogeneous embedding media. 13. The contribution by J D Shea, P Kosmas, B D Van Veen and S C Hagness, `Contrast-enhanced microwave imaging of breast tumors: a computational study using 3D realistic numerical phantoms', aims at microwave medical imaging, namely the early detection of breast cancer. The use of contrast enhancing agents is discussed in detail and a number of reconstructions in three-dimensional geometry of realistic numerical breast phantoms are presented. 14. The contribution by D A Subbarayappa and V Isakov, `Increasing stability of the continuation for the Maxwell system', discusses enhanced log-type stability results for continuation of solutions of the time-harmonic Maxwell system, adding a fresh chapter to the interesting story of the study of the Cauchy problem for PDE. 15. In their contribution, `Recent developments of a monotonicity imaging method for magnetic induction tomography in the small skin-depth regime', A Tamburrino, S Ventre and G Rubinacci extend the recently developed monotonicity method toward the application of magnetic induction tomography in order to map surface-breaking defects affecting a damaged metal component. 16. The contribution by F Viani, P Rocca, M Benedetti, G Oliveri and A Massa, `Electromagnetic passive localization and tracking of moving targets in a WSN-infrastructured environment', contributes to what could still be seen as a niche problem, yet both useful in terms of applications, e.g., security, and challenging in terms of methodologies and experiments, in particular, in view of the complexity of environments in which this endeavor is to take place and the variability of the wireless sensor networks employed. To conclude, we would like to thank the able and tireless work of Kate Watt and Zoë Crossman, as past and present Publishers of the Journal, on what was definitely a long and exciting journey (sometimes a little discouraging when reports were not arriving, or authors were late, or Guest Editors overwhelmed) that started from a thorough discussion at the `Manchester workshop on electromagnetic inverse problems' held mid-June 2009, between Kate Watt and the Guest Editors. We gratefully acknowledge the fact that W W Symes gave us his full backing to carry out this special issue and that A K Louis completed it successfully. Last, but not least, the staff of Inverse Problems should be thanked, since they work together to make it a premier journal.