Adaptive Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography

Electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) has shown to be an effective low-cost and high-speed imaging technique suitable for many applications, including 3-D reconstruction of multiphase flow systems. In this paper, we introduce the concept of adaptive ECVT based upon the combination of a large number of small individual sensor segments to comprise synthetic capacitance plates of different (and possibly noncontiguous) shapes while still satisfying a minimum plate area criterion set by a given SNR. The response from different segments is combined electronically in a reconfigurable fashion. The proposed adaptive concept paves the way for ECVT to be applicable in scenarios requiring higher resolution and dynamic imaging reconstruction.