Multichannel time-reversal processing for acoustic communications in a highly reverberant environment.

The development of time-reversal (T/R) communication systems is a recent signal processing research area dominated by applying T/R techniques to communicate in hostile environments. The fundamental concept is based on time-reversing the impulse response or Green's function characterizing the uncertain communications channel to mitigate deleterious dispersion and multipath effects. In this paper, we extend point-to-point to array-to-point communications by first establishing the basic theory to define and solve the underlying multichannel communications problem and then developing various realizations of the resulting T/R receivers. We show that not only do these receivers perform well in a hostile environment, but they also can be implemented with a "1 bit" analog-to-digital converter design structure. We validate these results by performing proof-of-principle acoustic communications experiments in air. It is shown that the resulting T/R receivers are capable of extracting the transmitted coded sequence from noisy microphone array measurements with zero-bit error.

Time-reversal analysis for scatterer characterization.

A new application of time-reversal processing of wave scattering data permits characterization of scatterers by analyzing the number and nature of the singular functions (or eigenfunctions) associated with individual scatterers when they have multiple contributions from monopole, dipole, and/or quadrupole scattering terms. We discuss acoustic, elastic, and electromagnetic scattering problems for low frequencies. Specific examples for electromagnetic scattering from one of a number of small conducting spheres show that each sphere can have up to six distinct time-reversal eigenfunctions associated with it.

Experimental and simulated ultrasonic characterization of complex damage in fused silica.

The growth of a laser-induced, surface damage site in a fused silica window was monitored by the ultrasonic pulse-echo technique. The laser damage was grown using 12-ns pulses of 1.053-microm wavelength light at a fluence of approximately 27 J/cm2. The ultrasonic data were acquired after each pulse of the laser beam for 19 pulses. In addition, optical images of the surface and subsurface damage shape were recorded after each pulse of the laser. The ultrasonic signal amplitude exhibited variations with the damage size, which were attributed to the subsurface morphology of the damage site. A mechanism for the observed ultrasonic data based on the interaction of the ultrasound with cracks radiating from the damage site was tested using two-dimensional numerical simulations. The simulated results exhibit qualitatively similar characteristics to the experimental data and demonstrate the usefulness of numerical simulation as an aid for ultrasonic signal interpretation. The observed sensitivity to subsurface morphology makes the ultrasonic methodology a promising tool for monitoring laser damage in large aperture laser optics used in fusion energy research.