Moment method simulations applied to performance evaluation for a born approximation microwave tomographic imaging technique

A microwave backscattering based tomographic imaging technique has been proposed and studied in the literature. This technique is strictly valid only if the first Born approximation is verified. In [6] and [7] the performance of the technique was studied with reference to point scatterers in a homogeneous medium and to small discontinuities in the reflectivity density function of extended two-dimensional weakly scattering bodies, respectively. In [18] some theoretical bounds for the validity of the Born approximation thecniques were derived. The aim of this report is to show the distorsions in the images obtained by means of this thecnique when that approximation is not valid. A computer-aided simulation has been performed in order to find the maximum allowable mismatch of a body with respect to its surroundings while still obtaining images which are useful for the purposes of industrial nondestructive evaluation (NDE).