Simplified model for EM inverse scattering by longitudinal subterranean inhomogeneities exploiting the dawn/dusk ionospheric ridge

It is well known that the ionospheric height varies substantially during the transition from day to night and vice versa; the same happens for the field on both sides of the discontinuity. The moving ionospheric ridge is employed to develop a method treating the inverse scattering problem for a buried inhomogeneous dielectric strip, based on accurate ground field measurements. The incident field and Green´s function are determined with the use of spectral integrals and the implementation of a mode-matching technique. The effect of a subterranean obstacle is evaluated via scattering integral discretisation, which leads to a guess about its permittivity profile. The prediction error of the proposed method is represented as a function of the problem parameters in various graphs and the technique´s robustness against inaccurate guesses has been tested.