Affiliations: Key Lab of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems,
Engineering Research Center of Industrial Computed Tomography Nondestructive
Testing, Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China | Biomedical Imaging Center, Center for Biotechnology
and Interdisciplinary Studies, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA | Department of Biomedical Engineering, VT-WFU School of
Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences,
NC, USA
Note: [] Corresponding author: Ge Wang, Biomedical Imaging Center,
CBIS/BME, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA. E-mail: wangg6@rpi.edu
Abstract: The goal is to develop new architectures for computed tomography
(CT) which are at an ultra-low-cost for developing countries, especially in
rural areas. The proposed general scheme is inspired by the recently developed
compressive sensing and interior tomography techniques, where the data
acquisition system targets a region of interest (ROI) to acquire limited and
truncated data. Similar to linear tomosynthesis, the source and detector are
translated in opposite directions but in contrast to conventional
tomosynthesis, our proposal is for either ROI reconstruction with one or more
localized linear scans or global reconstruction by combining multiple ROI
reconstructions. In other words, the popular slip ring is replaced by a
translation based setup, and the instrumentation cost is reduced by a
relaxation of the imaging speed requirement. The various translational scanning
modes are theoretically analyzed, and the scanning parameters are optimized.
The numerical simulation results from different numbers of linear scans confirm
the feasibility of the proposed scheme, and suggest two preferred low-end
systems for horizontal and vertical patient positions respectively.
Ultra-low-cost x-ray CT is feasible with our proposed combination of linear
scanning, compressive sensing, and interior tomography. The proposed
architecture can be tailored into permanent, movable, or reconfigurable systems
as desirable. Advanced image registration and spectral imaging features can be included as well.
