Quantitative comparison of the total focusing method, reverse time migration, and full waveform inversion for ultrasonic imaging

Phased array ultrasound is a widely used technique in non-destructive testing. Using piezoelectric elements as both sources and receivers provides a significant gain in information and enables more accurate defect detection. The process is called full matrix capture when all source-receiver combinations are used. The total focusing method (TFM) exploits such datasets and relies on a delay and sum algorithm to sum up the signals on a pixel grid. However, TFM only uses the first arriving p-waves, making it challenging to size complex-shaped defects. By contrast, more advanced methods such as reverse time migration (RTM) and full waveform inversion (FWI) use full waveforms to reconstruct defects. Both methods compare measured signals with ultrasound simulations. While RTM identifies defects by convolving forward and backward wave fields once, FWI iteratively updates material models to reconstruct the actual distributions of material properties. This study compares TFM, RTM, and FWI for six specimens featuring circular defects or Y-shaped notches. The reconstructed results are first evaluated qualitatively by visual assessment, then different defect segmentation approaches are studied, and finally, they are evaluated quantitatively using metrics such as AUPRC, AUROC, and F1-score. The results show that a two-step FWI framework performs best in most of the six samples studied, both qualitatively and quantitatively.