On-Line Directional Algebraic Reconstruction Technique for Electrical Capacitance Tomography

In general, image reconstruction algorithms for electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) can be classified into iterative and noniterative algorithms. Iterative algorithms produce better quality images however they can only be used off-line due to intensive computational burden. In the context of computational burden, in this paper we propose a fast noniterative image reconstruction algorithm called on-line directional algebraic reconstruction technique (OLDART) which like its predecessor, directional algebraic reconstruction technique (DART), produces the same quality image but reduces the reconstruction time. The reconstruction procedure of the proposed algorithm comprises of two steps. In the first step, a modified weighting matrix is generated off-line, and in the second step, the matrix is used for on-line image reconstruction in the same manner as the sensitivity matrix in the linear back-projection algorithm is used. In order to assess the reconstruction performance, extensive simulation results are provided for the proposed approach.