The study on the inverse problem of applied current thermoacoustic imaging based on generative adversarial network

Applied Current Thermoacoustic Imaging (ACTAI) is a new imaging method which combines electromagnetic excitation with ultrasound imaging, and takes ultrasonic signal as medium and biological tissue conductivity as detection target. Taking the high contrast advantage of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) and high resolution advantage of ultrasound imaging, ACTAI has broad application prospects in the field of biomedical imaging. Although ACTAI has high excitation efficiency and strong detectable Signal-to-Noise Ratio, yet while under low frequency electromagnetic excitation, it is still a big challenge to reconstruct a high-resolution image of target conductivity. This paper proposes a new method for reconstructing conductivity based on Generative Adversarial Network, and it consists of three main steps: firstly, use Wiener filtering deconvolution to restore the electrical signal output by the ultrasonic probe to a real acoustic signal. Then obtain the initial acoustic source image with filtered backprojection technology. Finally, match the conductivity image with the initial sound source image, which are used as training samples for generating the adversarial network to establish a deep learning model for conductivity reconstruction. After theoretical analysis and simulation research, it is found that by introducing machine learning, the new method can dig out the inverse problem solving model contained in the data, which further reconstruct a high-resolution conductivity image and has strong anti-interference characteristics. The new method provides a new way to solve the problem of conductivity reconstruction in Applied Current Thermoacoustic Imaging.

Improving Conductivity Image Quality Using Block Matrix-based Multiple Regularization (BMMR) Technique in EIT: A Simulation Study

A Block Matrix based Multiple Regularization (BMMR) technique is proposed for improving conductivity image quality in Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT). The response matrix (JTJ) has been partitioned into several sub-block matrices and the largest element of each sub-block matrix has been chosen as regularization parameter for the nodes contained by that sub-block. Simulated boundary data are generated for circular domains with circular inhomogeneities of different geometry and the conductivity images are reconstructed in a Model Based Iterative Image Reconstruction (MoBIIR) algorithm. Conductivity images are reconstructed with BMMR technique and the results are compared with the Single-step Tikhonov Regularization (STR) and modified Levenberg-Marquardt Regularization (LMR) methods. Results show that the BMMR technique improves the impedance image and its spatial resolution for single and multiple inhomogeneity phantoms of different geometries. It is observed that the BMMR technique reduces the projection error as well as the solution error and improves the conductivity reconstruction in EIT. Results also show that the BMMR method improves the image contrast and inhomogeneity conductivity profile by reducing background noise for all the phantom configurations.