SINGLE-ANTENNA TIME-REVERSAL IMAGING BASED ON INDEPENDENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS

Time reversal techniques are based on the time reversal invariance of the wave equation. They use time-reversed fields recollected by an array antenna to perform imaging and focusing on the source of received signals. Two widely used time reversal techniques are DORT and time reversal MUSIC which are based on eigenvalue decomposition of the time reversal operator. We introduce a new time reversal technique based on independent component analysis (ICA). Time reversal ICA (TR- ICA) exploits the independence of scattered signals of the well-resolved targets to perform imaging. It breaks the mixed backscattered received signals to independent components by maximizing the non- Gaussianity of basic signals. The main advantage of this method is that imaging and focusing are achieved using only one transmitting antenna which simplifies the physical implementation drastically. We have simulated the performance of the introduced method in different scenarios such as selective focusing in the presence of scatterers with different materials, sizes and distances. In addition, the effect of noise on TR-ICA and through-the-wall imaging (TWI) are studied. Some of the results are compared to the DORT method. Finally, the validity of this algorithm is verified by performing physical measurements.