APPLICATION OF GENETIC ALGORITHMS TO ULTRASONIC TOMOGRAPHY

A new method for ultrasonic tomography based on genetic algorithms is proposed for the prediction of the geometry of an inclusion of known p hysical properties in a given specimen. New inversion operators are in troduced in order to take full advantage of the physical properties of the system investigated. The efficiency of the proposed method is tes ted through a comparison with other existing techniques for the soluti on of the inverse problem. The accuracy of the procedure is verified b y using a variety of sets of synthetic data. Good and fast convergence is obtained even in the case of complex geometries if parallel proces sing is adopted. (C) 1998 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(9 8)00108-8].