Three-dimensional imaging of targets buried in a cluttered semi-infinite medium

The present contribution deals with the detection and characterization of targets embedded in a highly cluttered environment using an electromagnetic wave probing. The targets are buried in a semi-infinite host medium with a flat interface and random permittivity. A two-dimensional antenna array is located in air above the random medium for illuminating and detecting the scene. The poor impedance matching between the antennas and the host medium limits significantly the effective numerical aperture of the imaging system. To reconstruct the targets, we propose to combine the DORT (french acronym for Decomposition de l'Operateur de Retournement Temporel) method with an iterative inversion technique and a frequency hopping procedure. Numerical experiments show that this approach permits the reconstruction of the targets even when they are located in a highly cluttered medium. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.