System for Electrical Impedance Tomography and Method Thereof

• US 20080252304A1
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Published: 10/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: University-Industry Cooperation Group of KyungHee University
• Original Assignee: University-Industry Cooperation Group of KyungHee University
• Inventors: Oh, Dong In, Kwon, Oh In, Seo, Jin Keun, Woo, Eung Je
• Granted Patent: US 7,847,565 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 324/692
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0536 Impedance imaging, e.g. by tomography

Abstract

A system for electrical impedance tomography and method thereof are disclosed, by which electrical characteristics within a measurement target can be precisely detected. The present invention includes the steps of injection a current to a measurement target via at least one electrode pair selected form a plurality of electrodes (250) attached to the measurement target, detecting voltage of a surface of the measurement target using a plurality of voltmeters (260) connected to the electrodes that are not selected, respectively, adjusting gains of the voltmeters according to maximum values of the detected voltages, respectively, amplifying the detected voltages using the gain-adjusted voltmeters, respectively, and imaging an internal part of the measurement target based on the amplified voltages.

Claims

1. A method of electrical impedance tomography, comprising the steps of:

injecting a current to a measurement target via at least one electrode pair selected from a plurality of electrodes attached to the measurement target;

detecting voltage of a surface of the measurement target using a plurality of voltmeters connected to the electrodes that are not selected, respectively;

adjusting gains of the voltmeters according to maximum values of the detected voltages, respectively;

amplifying the detected voltages using the gain-adjusted voltmeters, respectively; and

imaging an internal part of the measurement target based on the amplified voltages.

2. The method of claim 1, the step of injecting the current to the measurement target via the at least one selected electrode pair, comprising the steps of selecting the electrode pair and a frequency;

generating a voltage signal according to the selected frequency;

converting the voltage signal to a current; and

injecting the current into the measurement target via the selected electrode pair.

3. The method of claim 1, the step of injecting the current to the measurement target via the at least one selected electrode pair, comprising the steps of

converting a voltage signal to two currents differing in phase;

calibrating the two currents to have a same amplitude and frequency; and

injecting the two currents into the measurement target via the selected electrode pair, respectively.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of removing noise included in the detected voltages based on slopes of the detected voltages.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein if the slope of the detected voltage exceeds a threshold, a voltage of a section corresponding to the slope exceeding the threshold is replaced by a preset voltage value.

6. The method of claim 1, the step of adjusting the gains of the voltmeters according to the maximum values of the detected voltages, respectively, comprising the step of adjusting the gains of the voltmeters to have the maximum values of the detected voltages equal to or greater than 90% of maximum outputs of the voltmeters, respectively.

7. The method of claim 1, the step of imaging the internal part of the measurement target based on the amplified voltages, comprising the steps of:

adjusting sizes of the amplified voltages according to gain values of the voltmeters, respectively; and

imaging the internal part of the measurement target based on the adjusted voltage sizes.

8. A system for electrical impedance tomography, comprising:

a plurality of electrodes attached to a measurement target for current injection and voltage detection;

a current source supplying a current to a plurality of the electrodes;

a board including a plurality of switches to selectively provide the current to at least one selected electrode pair from the current source;

a plurality of voltmeters detecting voltages of a surface of the measurement target via the electrodes not selected, the voltmeters amplifying the detected voltages after adjusting amplification rates of the detected voltages according to maximum values of the detected voltages; and

a main controller imaging an internal part of the measurement target based on the amplified voltages.

9. The system of claim 8, the current source comprising:

a control unit outputting a digital voltage signal according to a command of the main controller;

a pair of first D/A converters converting the digital voltage signal to two analog voltage signals, respectively;

a pair of second D/A converters adjusting amplitudes of the two analog voltage signals, respectively;

a pair of voltage-to-current converter converting the two analog voltage signals to two currents, respectively; and

a calibrator calibrating the two currents outputted from the voltage-to-current converter to make the two calibrated currents identical to each other in amplitude and frequency and maximizing of the output impedance of two current sources.

10. The system of claim 8, each of a plurality of the voltmeters, comprising:

a voltage amplifier amplifying the corresponding detected voltage;

an A/D converter converting the amplified voltage to digital voltage data; and

a control unit adjusting a gain of the voltage amplifier.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the A/D converter samples the amplified voltage by a non-uniform sampling technique.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein each of a plurality of the voltmeters transmits an ID, the adjusted amplification rate and the detected voltage to the main controller.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein a plurality of the voltmeters remove noises included in the detected voltages based on slopes of the detected voltages, respectively.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein if the slope of the detected voltage exceeds a threshold, the corresponding voltmeter replaces a voltage of a section corresponding to the slope exceeding the threshold by a preset voltage value.

15. The system of claim 8, wherein the main controller controls the selected electrode pair to discharge storage charges remaining within the measurement target while collecting the amplification rates of the voltmeters and the detected voltages.

16. The system of claim 8, wherein a plurality of the voltmeters are arranged radially and symmetrically.

17. The system of claim 8, further comprising a motherboard controlling a network between the current source, the board, the voltmeters and the main controller.