Electrical resistance tomography based on the single drive electrode method

Conventional electrical resistance tomography (ERT) systems usually employ the current excitation, voltage measure adjacent method as the data acquisition strategy. In this paper, based on the analysis of the adjacent method, a new data acquisition strategy, which is the current excitation, current measure single drive electrode method, is introduced. In order to simplify the circuits and to enhance the real time performance of system, the bi-directional pulse current is put forward as the drive current. A new measurement circuit for the new method was designed, and a new ERT system has been proposed on the basis of the character of the input and output signals. Preliminary experiments have been done with the new system and the results were presented to show the validity of the single drive electrode method and the feasibility of the new ERT system.