Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography: a Comparison Between 12- and 24-Channels Sensor Systems

Spatial resolution represents a key performance aspect in electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) systems. Factors affecting the resolution include the "soft-field" nature of ECVT, the number of capacitance channels used, the ill-conditioned nature of the imaging reconstruction problem, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurement apparatus. In this study, the effect of choosing different numbers of capacitance plates on the performance of ECVT is investigated experimentally. Specifically, two ECVT sensors with 12 and 24 capacitance channels but covering equal volumes of a cylinder are used to examine the resulting impact on the image resolution.