Piecewise Constant Conductivity Research Articles

Numerical solution method for the electric impedance tomography problem in the case of piecewise constant conductivity and several unknown boundaries

We study the electrical impedance tomography problem with piecewise constant electric conductivity coefficient, whose values are assumed to be known. The problem is to find the unknown boundaries of domains with distinct conductivities. The input information for the solution of this problem includes several pairs of Dirichlet and Neumann data on the known external boundary of the domain, i.e., several cases of specification of the potential and its normal derivative. We suggest a numerical solution method for this problem on the basis of the derivation of a nonlinear operator equation for the functions that define the unknown boundaries and an iterative solution method for this equation with the use of the Tikhonov regularization method. The results of numerical experiments are presented.

A numerical method for solving a three-dimensional electrical impedance tomography problem in the case of the data given on part of the boundary

A three-dimensional electrical impedance tomography problem in the case of an object with a piecewise constant electrical conductivity is considered. The task is to determine the unknown boundary separating regions of an object with different conductivity values, which are assumed to be known. The initial data for determining the inhomogeneity boundary represents electrical measurements taken on part of the object’s boundary. A numerical method for solving the problem is proposed and the numerical results are presented.

Shape and parameter reconstruction for the Robin transmission inverse problem

Abstract In this paper we consider the inverse problem of simultaneously reconstructing the interface where the jump of the conductivity occurs and the Robin parameter for a transmission problem with piecewise constant conductivity and Robin-type transmission conditions on the interface. We propose a reconstruction method based on a shape optimization approach and compare the results obtained using two different types of shape functionals. The reformulation of the shape optimization problem as a suitable saddle point problem allows us to obtain the optimality conditions by using differentiability properties of the min-sup combined with a function space parameterization technique. The reconstruction is then performed by means of an iterative algorithm based on a conjugate shape gradient method combined with a level set approach. To conclude we give and discuss several numerical examples.

Scattering of surface plasmons on graphene by a discontinuity in surface conductivity

The scattering of graphene surface plasmons from an arbitrary, one-dimensional discontinuity in graphene surface conductivity is treated analytically by an exact solution of the quasi-static integral equation for surface current density in the spectral domain. It is found that the reflection and transmission coefficients are not governed by the Fresnel formulas obtained by means of the effective medium approach. Furthermore, the reflection coefficient generally exhibits an anomalous reflection phase, which has so far only been reported for the particular case of reflection from abrupt edges. This anomalous phase becomes frequency-independent in the regime where the effect of inter-band transitions on graphene conductivity is negligible. The results are in excellent agreement with full-wave electromagnetic simulations, and can serve as a basis for the analysis of inhomogeneous graphene layers with a piecewise-constant conductivity profile.

Model-aware Newton-type inversion scheme for electrical impedance tomography

Electrical impedance tomography is a non-invasive method for imaging the electrical conductivity of an object from voltage measurements on its surface. This inverse problem suffers in three respects: It is highly nonlinear, severely ill-posed and highly under-determined. To obtain yet reasonable reconstructions, maximal information needs to be gathered from the model and extracted from the data in all stages of the reconstruction procedure. We will present a holistic reconstruction framework which estimates the unknown model-specific parameters, i.e. background conductivity, contact impedance, and noise level, before solving the full nonlinear problem with a Newton-type method. Therein, a novel conductivity transformation decreases nonlinearity while a weighting scheme resolves the under-determinedness by promoting the reconstruction of piecewise constant conductivities. This way we increase robustness, speed, and reconstruction accuracy. Moreover, our method is easy to use and applies to a wide range of settings as it is free of design parameters. Being an absolute imaging method, no measured calibration data is required. We demonstrate the performance of this concept numerically for simulated and measured data.

Numerical method for solving a two-dimensional electrical impedance tomography problem in the case of measurements on part of the outer boundary

The two-dimensional electrical impedance tomography problem is considered in the case of a piecewise constant electrical conductivity. The task is to determine the unknown boundary separating the regions with different conductivity values, which are known. Input information is the electric field measured on a portion of the outer boundary of the domain. A numerical method for solving the problem is proposed, and numerical results are presented.

Nonlinear Fourier analysis for discontinuous conductivities: Computational results

Two reconstruction methods of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) are numerically compared for nonsmooth conductivities in the plane based on the use of complex geometrical optics (CGO) solutions to D-bar equations involving the global uniqueness proofs for Calderón problem exposed in Nachman (1996) [43] and Astala and Päivärinta (2006) [6]: the Astala–Päivärinta theory-based low-pass transport matrix method implemented in Astala et al. (2011) [3] and the shortcut method which considers ingredients of both theories. The latter method is formally similar to the Nachman theory-based regularized EIT reconstruction algorithm studied in Knudsen et al. (2009) [34] and several references from there.New numerical results are presented using parallel computation with size parameters larger than ever, leading mainly to two conclusions as follows. First, both methods can approximate piecewise constant conductivities better and better as the cutoff frequency increases, and there seems to be a Gibbs-like phenomenon producing ringing artifacts. Second, the transport matrix method loses accuracy away from a (freely chosen) pivot point located outside of the object to be studied, whereas the shortcut method produces reconstructions with more uniform quality.

Numerical solution of the electrical impedance tomography problem with piecewise-constant conductivity and one measurement on the boundary

We consider the electrical impedance tomography problem in a bounded plane region with piecewiseconstant conductivity. The boundary of the nonhomogeneity is assumed unknown. The inverse problem determines the contour tracing the nonhomogeneity boundary from measurements of the potential and its normal derivative on the outer boundary of the region. A numerical method is proposed for the solution of the problem and the results of a computer experiment are reported.

An upper bound for the steady-state temperature for a class of heat conduction problems wherein the thermal conductivity is temperature dependent

This article presents an a priori upper bound estimate for the steady-state temperature distribution in a body with a temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. The discussion is carried out assuming linear boundary conditions (Newton law of cooling) and a piecewise constant thermal conductivity (when regarded as a function of the temperature). These estimates consist of a powerful tool that may circumvent an expensive numerical simulation of a nonlinear heat transfer problem, whenever it suffices to know the highest temperature value. In these cases the methodology proposed in this work is more effective than the usual approximations that assume thermal conductivities and heat sources as constants.

Numerical method for solving an inverse electrocardiography problem for a quasi stationary case

Abstract. An inverse electrocardiography problem for a different time moment is studied. The realistic 3D geometry of human torso and chest medium with piecewise constant electrical conductivity are considered. A numerical method for solving the inverse electrocardiography problem at a given time moment is suggested. Results of comparison of numerical solutions to the inverse electrocardiography problems for a clinical data on torso surface and a clinical measurement inside of heart are given.

Iterative method for solving a three-dimensional electrical impedance tomography problem in the case of piecewise constant conductivity and one measurement on the boundary

The problem of electrical impedance tomography in a bounded three-dimensional domain with a piecewise constant electrical conductivity is considered. The boundary of the inhomogeneity is assumed to be unknown. The inverse problem is to determine the surface that is the boundary of the inhomogeneity from given measurements of the potential and its normal derivative on the outer boundary of the domain. An iterative method for solving the inverse problem is proposed, and numerical results are presented.

Numerical methods for the shape reconstruction of electrical anomalies using single or double boundary measurements

A solution of the conductivity problem with anomalies of piecewise constant conductivities in a homogeneous medium can be represented as a single layer potential. We propose a simple disk reconstruction method based on the Laurent expansion of the single layer potential to estimate anomalies that can be used as an initial guess for an iterative searching algorithm. Using a simple linear relationship between the normal domain perturbation distance and the boundary perturbation, we develop an iterative algorithm to find anomalies within the domain. The performance of the algorithm is illustrated via numerical examples. The iterative searching algorithm works well in many cases using a single boundary measurement. However, some features of the anomalies require that the algorithm utilize multiple measurements. We discuss the limitations of the inverse conductivity problem using a single Cauchy data set and present a modified version of the algorithm for use with double boundary measurements. The improved performance of this modified numerical scheme is also illustrated with various examples.

Second-order topological expansion for electrical impedance tomography

Second-order topological expansions in electrical impedance tomography problems with piecewise constant conductivities are considered. First-order expansions usually consist of local terms typically involving the state and the adjoint solutions and their gradients estimated at the point where the topological perturbation is performed. In the case of second-order topological expansions, non-local terms which have a higher computational cost appear. Interactions between several simultaneous perturbations are also considered. The study is aimed at determining the relevance of these non-local and interaction terms from a numerical point of view. A level set based shape algorithm is proposed and initialized by using topological sensitivity analysis.

Conformal mapping and impedance tomography

Over the last decade Akduman, Haddar and Kress [1, 3, 5] have employed a conformal mapping technique for the inverse problem to recover a perfectly conducting or a non-conducting inclusion in a homogeneous background medium from Cauchy data on the accessible exterior boundary. More recently, Haddar and Kress [4] proposed an extension of this approach to two-dimensional inverse electrical impedance tomography with piecewise constant conductivities. A main ingredient of this extension is the incorporation of the transmission condition on the unknown interior boundary via a nonlocal boundary condition in terms of an integral equation. We present an outline of the foundations of this new method.

Boundary integral formulations for the forward problem in magnetic induction tomography

In this paper we present two models for the forward problem of magnetic induction tomography. In particular, we describe the eddy current model, and a reduced simplified model. The error between the reduced and the full model is analyzed in dependence of parameters such as the frequency and the conductivity. In the case of a piecewise constant conductivity we derive a boundary integral formulation for the reduced model. Finally, we comment on numerical results for the forward problem and give a comparison of both models. Copyrightcopyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Forward Field Computation with OpenMEEG

To recover the sources giving rise to electro- and magnetoencephalography in individual measurements, realistic physiological modeling is required, and accurate numerical solutions must be computed. We present OpenMEEG, which solves the electromagnetic forward problem in the quasistatic regime, for head models with piecewise constant conductivity. The core of OpenMEEG consists of the symmetric Boundary Element Method, which is based on an extended Green Representation theorem. OpenMEEG is able to provide lead fields for four different electromagnetic forward problems: Electroencephalography (EEG), Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), and intracranial electric potentials (IPs). OpenMEEG is open source and multiplatform. It can be used from Python and Matlab in conjunction with toolboxes that solve the inverse problem; its integration within FieldTrip is operational since release 2.0.

Electrical impedance tomography using a point electrode inverse scheme for complete electrode data

For the two dimensional inverse electrical impedance problem in the case of piecewise constant conductivities with the currents injected at adjacent point electrodes and the resulting voltages measured between the remaining electrodes, in [3] the authors proposed a nonlinear integral equation approach that extends a method that has been suggested by Kress and Rundell [10] for the case of perfectly conducting inclusions. As the main motivation for using a point electrode method we emphasized on numerical difficulties arising in a corresponding approach by Eckel and Kress [4, 5] for the complete electrode model. Therefore, the purpose of the current paper is to illustrate that the inverse scheme based on point electrodes can be successfully employed when synthetic data from the complete electrode model are used.

Numerical solution of an inverse electrocardiography problem for a medium with piecewise constant electrical conductivity

A numerical method is proposed for solving an inverse electrocardiography problem for a medium with a piecewise constant electrical conductivity. The method is based on the method of boundary integral equations and Tikhonov regularization.

Conformal mapping and impedance tomography

Akduman and Kress (2002 Inverse Problems 18 1659–1672), Haddar and Kress (2005 Inverse Problems 21 935–953), and Kress (2004 Math. Comput. Simul. 66 255–265) have employed a conformal mapping technique for the inverse problem to recover a perfectly conducting or a non-conducting inclusion in a homogeneous background medium from the Cauchy data on the accessible exterior boundary. We propose an extension of this approach to two-dimensional inverse electrical impedance tomography with piecewise constant conductivities. A main ingredient of our method is the incorporation of the transmission condition on the unknown interior boundary via a nonlocal boundary condition in terms of an integral equation. We present the foundations of the method, a local convergence result and exhibit the feasibility of the method via numerical examples.

Stable Reconstruction of Piecewise Continuous Plane Stratified Biological Tissues via Electrical Impedance Tomography

Image reconstruction in electrical impedance tomography is, generally, an ill-posed nonlinear inverse problem. Regularization methods are widely used to ensure a stable solution. Herein, we present a case study, which uses a novel electrical impedance tomography method for reconstruction of layered biological tissues with piecewise continuous plane-stratified profiles. The algorithm implements the recently proposed reconstruction scheme for piecewise constant conductivity profiles, utilizing Legendre expansion in conjunction with improved Prony method. It is shown that the proposed algorithm is capable of successfully reconstructing piecewise continuous conductivity profiles with moderate slop. This reconstruction procedure, which calculates both the locations and the conductivities, repetitively provides inhomogeneous depth discretization, i.e., the depths grid is not equispaced. Incorporation of this specific inhomogeneous grid in the widely used mean least square reconstruction procedure results in a stable and accurate reconstruction, whereas, the commonly selected equispaced depth grid leads to unstable reconstruction. This observation establishes the main result of our investigation, highlighting the impact of physical phenomenon (the image series expansion) on electrical impedance tomography, leading to a physically motivated stabilization of the inverse problem, i.e., an inhomogeneous depth discretization renders an inherent regularization of the mean least square algorithm. The effectiveness and the significance of inhomogeneous discretization in electrical impedance tomography reconstruction procedure is further demonstrated and verified via numerical simulations.