Study on the Shape of Staggered Electrodes for 3D Electrical Capacitance Tomography Sensors

A conventional electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) sensor consists of multiple rectangular electrodes in a single plane. To generate 3-D images, some researchers use an ECT sensor with multiplane rectangular electrodes and in-line arrangement of different electrode planes and measure the capacitance between the electrode pairs not only within the same plane but also between different planes. Because those electrode pairs in different planes are far away from each other, the measured capacitance signals between them are weak and, hence, are easily affected by noise, resulting in the obvious disturbance on the measured signals and, hence, low image quality. To address those problems, the 3-D ECT sensors with different arrangements and different shapes of electrodes are studied to investigate the effect of different arrangements and different shapes of electrodes on the measured capacitance signals and the image quality. Four 3-D ECT sensors are made with different arrangements or shapes of electrodes: rectangular electrodes are in line arrangement, whereas diamond, circular, and hexagon electrodes are staggered arrangement. The performance of the four 3-D ECT sensors is compared. The results show that 3-D ECT sensors with staggered electrodes can decrease the disturbance on the measured signals and improve the image quality of static models compared with that with conventional rectangular electrodes. Among the three 3-D ECT sensors with staggered electrodes, the 3-D ECT sensor with hexagonal electrodes has superior performance to the other two 3-D ECT sensors with diamond and circular electrodes. It was used to measure moving objects and a fluidized bed.