Digital signal processor in optical tomography system

Abstract

The utilization of personal computer together with Data Acquisition System (DAQ) as the processing tool in optical tomography systems has been a norm ever since the beginning of process tomography. However, the advancements in silicon fabrication technology nowadays allow the fabrication of powerful Digital Signal Processors (DSP) at a reasonable cost. This allows the technology to be applied in optical tomography system since data acquisition and processing can be . performed within the DSP. Thus, the dependency of personal computer and the DAQ to sample and process the external signals can be reduced or otherwise eliminated. The DSP system was customized to control the data acquisition process of 16x 16 optical sensors array, arranged in parallel beam projection. The data collected was used to reconstruct the cross sectional image of the pipeline conveyor. For image display purpose, the reconstructed image was sent to a personal computer via serial communication. This allows the use of a laptop to display the tomogram image besides performing any other offline analysis.