Numerical developments for short-pulsed Near Infra-Red laser spectroscopy. Part II: inverse treatment

Indirect optical spectroscopy or tomography, that is, mapping of optical properties in scattering and absorption inside a medium given a set of measurements at the boundaries, is highly dependent on the radiative transfer model used to track radiative energy propagation in semi-transparent materials. In the first part of this study, a numerical tool adapted for treating radiative transfer in the frame of short-pulsed laser beam interaction with non-homogeneous matter has been presented. In this paper, it is intended to show how such numerical tools can undergo inversion through adjoint treatment or reverse differentiation.Adjoint models, as well as reverse differentiation, are used in order to allow an efficient computation of the gradient, in the unknown optical parameters space, of an objective or cost function estimating the residual between data obtained at the boundary and predictions by numerical simulations. This gradient is a crucial indication as to update, through line minimization, the set of internal optical properties of the medium.First, the theoretical background of the inverse treatments, both reverse differentiation and adjoint model, for the transient radiative transfer equation model introduced in Part I is developed. Second, different reconstruction configurations are presented. Time-dependent sampling and time filtering effects of the measurements are addressed. Image reconstructions from simulated data are achieved for material phantoms of simple geometry.     

New developments in frequency domain optical tomography. Part I: Forward model and gradient computation

This two part study introduces new developments in frequency domain optical tomography to take into account the collimated source direction in the computation of both the forward and the adjoint models. The solution method is based on the least square finite element method associated to the discrete ordinates method where no empirical stabilization is needed. In this first part of the study, the solution method of the forward model is highlighted with an easy handling of complex boundary condition through a penalization method. Gradient computation from an adjoint method is developed rigorously in a continuous manner through a lagrangian formalism for the deduction of the adjoint equation and the gradient of the objective function. The proposed formulation can be easily generalized to stationary and time domain optical tomography by keeping the same expressions.     

MOL solution of DOM for transient radiative transfer in 3-D scattering media

A methodology based on the method of lines solution of discrete ordinates method for solution of the 3-D transient radiative transfer equation is introduced. The method is applied to the prediction of transient and steady state transmittances in a cubical enclosure containing purely scattering medium and validated against Monte Carlo solutions from the literature. The flexibility of the method for implementation of linear spatial differencing schemes, flux limiters and weighted essentially non-oscillatory methods is demonstrated. Van Leer flux limiter is found to provide stable, accurate and efficient solutions.     

Development and comparison of different spatial numerical schemes for the radiative transfer equation resolution using three-dimensional unstructured meshes

In the present work four different spatial numerical schemes have been developed with the aim of reducing the false-scattering of the numerical solutions obtained with the discrete ordinates (DOM) and the finite volume (FVM) methods. These schemes have been designed specifically for unstructured meshes by means of the extrapolation of nodal values of intensity on the studied radiative direction. The schemes have been tested and compared in several 3D benchmark test cases using both structured orthogonal and unstructured grids.