J. L. Mueller

S. J. Hamilton, J. L. Mueller, T. R. Santos

Objective: Absolute images have important applications in medical Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) imaging, but the traditional minimization and statistical based computations are very sensitive to modeling errors and noise. In this paper, it is demonstrated that D-bar reconstruction methods for absolute EIT are robust to such errors. Approach: The effects of errors in domain shape and electrode placement on absolute images computed with 2D D-bar reconstruction algorithms are studied on experimental data. Main Results: It is demonstrated with tank data from several EIT systems that these methods are quite robust to such modeling errors, and furthermore the artefacts arising from such modeling errors are similar to those occurring in classic time-difference EIT imaging. Significance: This study is promising for clinical applications where absolute EIT images are desirable, but previously thought impossible.

S. J. Hamilton, C. N. L. Herrera, J. L. Mueller et al.

A direct reconstruction algorithm for complex conductivities in $W^{2,\infty}(Ω)$, where $Ω$ is a bounded, simply connected Lipschitz domain in $\mathbb{R}^2$, is presented. The framework is based on the uniqueness proof by Francini [Inverse Problems 20 2000], but equations relating the Dirichlet-to-Neumann to the scattering transform and the exponentially growing solutions are not present in that work, and are derived here. The algorithm constitutes the first D-bar method for the reconstruction of conductivities and permittivities in two dimensions. Reconstructions of numerically simulated chest phantoms with discontinuities at the organ boundaries are included.