Patent ID: 8332165

Claim:
A method for identifying features for an object, the method comprising: sending signals into the object at a plurality of locations using a measurement system; receiving response signals using the measurement system in response to sending the signals into the object at the plurality of locations; forming a first matrix in which each entry in the first matrix contains an amplitude of a response signal in the response signals for a location in the plurality of locations where the response signal was received and a time at which the response signal was received with respect to when a corresponding signal in the signals was sent into the object; decomposing the first matrix into a second matrix and a third matrix such that a product of the second matrix and the third matrix represents the first matrix, wherein a number of columns in the second matrix corresponds to a number of features for the object and wherein a number of rows in the third matrix corresponds to a number of sets of weighting factors for the number of features; and identifying information about the features in the object using the second matrix and the third matrix.