A Fast Single-Pass Method for Solving the Generalized Eikonal Equation in a Moving Medium

Abstract

We develop a fast method for approximating the solution to the generalized eikonal equation in a moving medium. Our approach consists of the following two steps. First, we convert the generalized eikonal equation in a moving medium into a Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation of anisotropic eikonal type for an anisotropic minimum-time control problem. Second, we modify the Neighbor–Gradient Single-pass method (NGSPM developed by Ho et al.), so that it not only suits the converted Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation but also can be faster than original NGSPM. In the case of that Mach number is not comparable than 1, we compare our method and Characteristic Fast Marching Method (CFMM developed by Dahiya) via several numerical examples to show that our method is faster and more accurate than CFMM. We also compare the numerical solutions obtained from our method with the solutions obtained using the ray theory to show that our method captures the viscosity solution accurately even when the Mach number is comparable to 1. We also apply our method to 3D example to show that our method captures the viscosity solution accurately in 3D cases.