Method for computing spatial pulse response: Time‐domain approach

The computer‐aided, time‐domain method is a proposal to determine the spatial pulse response for an arbitrarily shaped source and for arbitrary aperture velocity and delay distributions. The computational procedure ‘‘generates’’ the pulse response function by directly repeating the physical stages that accompany the creation of this phenomenon, such as radiation from the surface element, and propagation and summation in the observation point. The method is very simple mathematically, employing a simple algorithm, and can be easily implemented—even on a small minicomputer. The mathematical work required prior to the computation has been greatly simplified; the commonly studied behavior of the derivatives (arrival time/source point), as well as the exact temporal limits of the pulse response occurrence, need not be analyzed. The Dirac‐type free‐space Green’s function, as well as other arbitrary types of the causal Green’s function, can also be considered. The obtainable results are approximate, but computat...