Abstract: | We consider an inverse problem for finding the anomaly of discontinuous electrical conductivity by one current‐voltage observation. We develop a real time algorithm for determining the location of the anomaly. This new idea is based on the observation of the pattern of a simple weighted combination of the input current and the output voltage. Combined with the size estimation result, this algorithm gives a good initial guess for Newton‐type schemes. We give the rigorous proof for the location search algorithm. Both the mathematical analysis and its numerical implementation indicate our location search algorithm is very fast, stable and efficient. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |