Bayesian estimation of medium properties in wavefield inversion techniques

Waves (acoustic or electromagnetic) are used in many areas, such as ultrasonic medicine, geophysical oil prospecting, etc., for non-destructive imaging of the interior of objects, such as the earth and the human body. Wavefield measurements recorded on the surface of an object are inverted according to the wave equation to give an "image" of the interior of the object. This inversion usually enhances the noise present in the measurements and degrades the quality of the final image. Another source of degradation of the image is the insufficient knowledge of some properties of the medium, such as the wave propagation velocity. The aim of this paper is to use estimation theory to determine good estimates of the velocity and of the object image from known wavefield measurements.