Vol. 114, Issue 3, March 2010, pp. 83-101

A Low Cost and High Speed Electrical Capacitance Tomography System Design

¹Ruzairi ABDUL RAHIM, ¹Zhen Cong TEE, ²Mohd Hafiz FAZALUL RAHIMAN, ¹Jayasuman PUSPPANATHAN

¹Process Tomography Research Group, Control & Instrumentation Engineering Department,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Tel.: +607-5537801

²Tomography Imaging Research Group, School of Mechatronic Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Ulu Pauh Campus, 02600 Arau, Perlis, Malaysia.

Tel.: +604 9885166,

E-mail: ruzairi@fke.utm.my, hafiz@unimap.edu.my

Received: 18 January 2010   /Accepted: 22 March 2010   /Published: 29 March 2010

Abstract: Electrical capacitance tomography system is a system which can be used for imaging industrial multi-component processes involving non-conducting fluids in pipelines. In order to make an ECT system applicable in all kinds of industries, the cost factor of building an ECT system is essential. In this research, we focus on reducing the cost of the system while not affecting the quality of the results. In the past, most of the researches in tomography system have concentrated more on the design of the sensor, and use DAS card as the interface to the PC. This will increase the cost of the system. In this case, the cost of the data acquisition system will be needed to be taken into consideration. To develop a low cost and fast data acquisition system, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) is found to be the most ideal technology. In order to further reduce the cost of the ECT system, a very low cost material, aluminium plates are used as the electrodes of the system. The information obtained in the PC will be reconstructed using iterative algorithm in order to obtain a precise image of the flow in the pipeline. The information obtained from the system will be useful for the purpose of controlling the flow in the pipeline.

Keywords: Universal Serial Bus, Electrical capacitance tomography system, Data acquisition system, Function generator

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