This dissertation considers the inverse scattering problem of determining either the absorption of sound in an inhomogeneous medium or the surface impedance of an obstacle from a knowledge of the far-field patterns of the scattered fields corresponding to many incident time-harmonic plane waves.

First, we consider the inverse problem in the case when the scattering object is an inhomogeneous medium with complex refraction index having compact support. Our approach to this problem is the orthogonal projection method of Colton-Monk (cf. The inverse scattering problem for time acoustic waves in an inhomogeneous medium, Quart. J. Mech. Appl. Math. 41 (1988), 97-125). After that, we prove the analogue of Karp's Theorem for the scattering of acoustic waves through an inhomogeneous medium with compact support. We then generalize some of these results to the case when the inhomogeneous medium is no longer of compact support.

If the acoustic wave penetrates the inhomogeneous medium by only a small amount then the inverse medium problem leads to the inverse obstacle problem with an impedance boundary condition. We solve the inverse impedance problem of determining the surface impedance of an obstacle of known shape by using both the methods of Kirsch-Kress and Colton-Monk (cf. R. Kress, Linear Integral Equations, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1989).