Full Waveform Inversion

Exercise 4: Source Time Function Inversion

As essential part of the FWI workflow, the source signal must be inverted together with the earth model.
A Wiener filter is usually used for this source signal inversion, the equations of which are given below. For
the ”observed” data, we use here 2D modelled seismograms d(x, t), which were modelled for a homogeneous
acoustic model (c = 1000m/s). The explosive source and pressure receivers (hydrophones) are located along
a straight line. The receivers are located at offsets x = 5, 10, 15, ...250m away from the source. The data
only contains the direct P-wave. A so-called Fuchs-Müller signal with a center frequency of 40 Hz is used as
the source signal to produce the ”observed” seismograms. The modelled seismograms g(x,t) were calculated
for the same homogeneous model and source-receiver geometry using a Ricker signal instead. The script
”analytic_shotgather.m” used to calculate the modelled and ”observed” seismograms is also included. The
aim of the source signal inversion is to reconstruct the source signal (Fuchs-Müller signal) used to generate
the ”observed” seismograms. We can compare the quality of this reconstruction by direct comparison with
the known source signal. The Matlab script ”apply_stfi.m” is available for this purpose. This script uses
several functions, which are also included. The actual source signal correction filter (equation 4) is calculated
in the ”stfi.m” function.
Theory

The Fourier coefficients c̃l of the source wavelet correction filter are estimated by solving a damped linear
least-squares problem which is described by minimizing the objective function
N
X −1 X
M N
X −1
F (c̃l ; ϵ) = fk2 |d˜lk − c̃l g̃lk |2 + M Ēϵ2 |c̃l |2 (1)
l=0 k=1 l=0
| {z }
damping

where d˜lk and g̃lk denote the Fourier coefficients of the observed data and modelled data, respectively. M is
the number of receivers. In this equation the average energy of the modelled data is calculated by
N −1 M
1 XX 2
Ē = fk |g̃lk |2 (2)
MN
l=0 k=1

The function F (c̃l ; ϵ) becomes minimal if

∂F
=0 (3)
∂c̃l
This gives the coefficients of the Wiener-filter

M
∗
fk2 g̃lk
P
dlk
k=1
c̃l = M
, s̃opt = c̃l s̃l (4)
fk2 |g̃lk |2
P
M Ēϵ2 +
k=1

where the synthetic and observed seismograms can be scaled with offset rk to compensate for attenuation
 r κ
k
fk = (5)
1m

Tasks
1. Explain the structure and tasks that are performed in the Matlab script ”apply_stfi.m”.
2. Run the script with the parameters tracenorm=0 and SN=0. Include the Figures in your report and
explain the results. Please comment on the quality of the reconstruction of the true source signal.
3. Run the script with tracenorm=1 (trace normalization). Explain the effect of trace normalization on
the inverted source signal.
4. Run the script with different levels of noise added to the ”observed” data. Try signal-to-noise ratios of
SN = 1.0, 5.0, ... for both tracenorm=0 and 1. Is the source time function inversion generally to be
expected sensitive or robust against noise in the observed data ?