A multi-scale image reconstruction algorithm for electrical capacitance tomography

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) is considered as a promising process tomography (PT) technology, and its successful applications depend mainly on the precision and speed of the image reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, based on the wavelet multi-scale analysis method, an efficient image reconstruction algorithm is presented. The original inverse problem is decomposed into a sequence of inverse problems, which are solved successively from the largest scale to the smallest scale. At different scales, the inverse problem is solved by a generalized regularized total least squares (TLS) method, which is developed using a combinational minimax estimation method and an extended stabilizing functional, until the solution of the original inverse problem is found. The homotopy algorithm is employed to solve the objective functional. The proposed algorithm is tested by the noise-free capacitance data and the noise-contaminated capacitance data, and excellent numerical performances and satisfactory results are observed. In the cases considered in this paper, the reconstruction results show remarkable improvement in the accuracy. The spatial resolution of the reconstructed images by the proposed algorithm is enhanced and the artifacts in the reconstructed images can be eliminated effectively. As a result, a promising algorithm is introduced for ECT image reconstruction.