Patent ID: 8897095

Claim:
An object probing device for probing an object existing in a propagation environment, which probes the object by using a forward scattered wave scattered forward from the object, wherein; a sound field in which a sound pulse is projected from a sound source for projecting the sound pulse within the propagation environment and received by a transducer array under a state where the object does not exist in the propagation environment is defined as a reference sound field, a sound pulse received by the transducer array in the reference sound field is defined as a reference signal, a sound field in which a sound pulse is projected from the sound source and received by the transducer array under a state where the object exists in the propagation environment is defined as a probe sound field, and a sound pulse received by the transducer array in the probe sound field is defined as a mixed signal, the device comprising: the transducer array disposed in a region for receiving the forward scattered wave scattered forward from the object existing in the propagation environment receiving the sound pulse of the reference signal in the reference sound field, and receiving, in the probe sound field, the sound pulse of the forward scattered wave scattered forward from the object existing in the propagation environment; an addition processing unit which extracts only a signal of the forward scattered wave by applying vector addition processing data of the reference signal in the reference sound field and data of the mixed signal in a probe sound field; a time reversal processing unit which generates a time-reversed sound pulse by applying time reversal processing on the forward scattered wave extracted by the addition processing unit; a phase conjugation determination unit which investigates a similarity between an autocorrelation function of the sound pulse projected from the sound source in the propagation environment in the reference sound field and a correlation result acquired by adding the autocorrelation functions of the reference signals received at the transducer array, and determines that the propagation environment in the reference sound field exhibits a phase conjugacy when judged that those are similar; and a convergence calculation processing unit which calculates a position to which the time-reversed sound pulse generated by the time reversal processing unit converges, on condition that it is determined that the phase conjugacy is established.