A comparison of automatic techniques for estimating the regularization parameter in nonlinear inverse problems

Colin G. Farquharson & Douglas W. Oldenburg.

[2004, Geophysical Journal International, 156, 411-425.]

SUMMARY

Two automatic ways of estimating the regularization parameter in under-determined, minimum-structure-type solutions to nonlinear inverse problems are compared: the generalized cross-validation (GCV) and L-curve criteria. Both criteria provide a means of estimating the regularization parameter when only the relative sizes of the measurement uncertainties in a set of observations are known. The criteria, which are established components of linear inverse theory, are applied to the linearized inverse problem at each iteration in a typical iterative, linearized solution to the nonlinear problem. The particular inverse problem considered here is the simultaneous inversion of electromagnetic loop-loop data for one-dimensional models of both electrical conductivity and magnetic susceptibility. The performance of each criteria is illustrated with inversions of a variety of synthetic and field data-sets. In the great majority of examples tested, both criteria successfully determined suitable values of the regularization parameter, and hence credible models of the subsurface.


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Last update: 23 June 2005.
Colin Farquharson