Space-variant deconvolution for synthetic aperture imaging using simulated annealing

The synthetic aperture image formation process can be formulated as a space-variant 2D convolution. The recovery of the original reflection density is an ill-posed inverse problem which is both underdetermined and ill-conditionned. Its stabilization is achieved via concave stabilizers that are well adapted to the preservation of discontinuities. This leads to the minimization of a non-convex functional, a task which is successfully carried out using a Metropolis-type annealing algorithm. For improved performances, we investigate some inexpensive acceleration techniques which do not alter the theoretical convergence results; their efficiency is demonstrated through restorations from simulated data.