Experimentally identifying masked sources applying time reversal with the selective source reduction method

This paper describes a time reversal TR method of spatially illuminating a source signal which has been masked by another source signal. This masking occurs as a result of inherent limitations in the traditional TR process. The selective source reduction SSR method employs a subtraction technique where one TR focus is selectively reduced to illuminate the masked focus. Experimental results and considerations are presented to demonstrate the SSR method for two elastic wave pulses emitted simultaneously from two spatially separated surficial sources and to examine the limitations of the method. A blind test was conducted to demonstrate that no a priori information about the source s is required. Spatial and/or temporal characteristics of multiple close-proximity sources can be resolved with the use of the illumination method. The measurements show that the SSR method’s limitations are chiefly due to imperfect temporal reconstruction of the source function in the time reversed focal signal, which consequently limits signal reduction. © 2009 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.3079517