Short-Range Microwave Imaging Technique Based on an Inexact-Newton Method for the Nondestructive Inspection of Dielectric Objects

In this paper a short range microwave imaging algorithm is presented for non invasive diagnostic purposes related to security applications. The algorithm can be used in imaging systems where the presence of dielectric targets is detected by the "inversion" of measured samples of the scattered electric field. In particular, the proposed approach is based on the electromagnetic scattering equations in the spatial domain. In fact, despite frequency domain methods, such formulation allows a resolution which is ideally not affected by the wavelength. More specifically, an inexact Newton method is proposed and analysed as a regularizing tool to solve the nonlinear and highly ill-posed inverse scattering problem arising in imaging problems. The theory underlying these approach is provided and the results of some numerical simulations in noisy environments are reported