Innovations in Electromagnetic Imaging Technology: The Stored-Grain-Monitoring Case
Joe LoVetri, Mohammad Asefi, Colin Gilmore, Ian Jeffrey
Abstract
The evolution of the electromagnetic imaging technology that has enabled the quantitative imaging of the complex-valued permittivity of grains stored in silos is reviewed. The main innovations that have contributed to the advancement of electromagnetic imaging technology and facilitated the development of this particular application are described. These innovations relate to electromagnetic inverse scattering algorithms and the associated numerical inversion models, data acquisition systems that collect field information within grain-filled silos, and calibration techniques that bridge the gap that the modeling error creates between the inversion model and the actual system within which the scattered-field data are being collected. Although the particular case of storedgrain monitoring is used to highlight the need for the innovations that are described, these advances in electromagnetic imaging technology are applicable to-and, indeed, have been applied to-other areas, such as biomedical imaging for the detection of breast cancer.