Imaging method and imaging apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10586354-B2
Application number	US-201615764091-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 28, 2016
Priority date	Sep 29, 2015
Publication date	Mar 10, 2020
Grant date	Mar 10, 2020

Abstract

An imaging method includes a step of radiating a wave to a target object, a step of receiving a scattered wave as a result of the wave being scattered at the target object, and a step of reconstructing an image regarding internal information of the target object on the basis of scattered wave data indicating the scattered wave. In the step of reconstructing the image, a reconstruction function is derived by solving a partial differential equation by using the scattered wave data and an analysis model indicating a shape, and the image regarding the internal information of the target object is reconstructed by using the reconstruction function. Here, the partial differential equation is an equation satisfied by the reconstruction function for reconstructing the image regarding the internal information of the target object.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An imaging method comprising:
a step of radiating a wave to a target object;
a step of receiving a scattered wave as a result of the wave being scattered at the target object; and
a step of reconstructing an image regarding internal information of the target object on the basis of scattered wave data indicating the scattered wave,
wherein, in the step of reconstructing the image,
a reconstruction function for reconstructing the image regarding the internal information of the target object is derived by solving a partial differential equation by using the scattered wave data and an analysis model indicating a shape,
an imaging function which is a limiting value of a time variable of the reconstruction function is derived, and
the image regarding the internal information of the target object is reconstructed by using the reconstruction function,
wherein the partial differential equation is
an equation satisfied by the reconstruction function,
expressed by using independent variables indicating positions of a transmitting point and a receiving point which are located at the same position in the target object, and
a linear partial differential equation having, as a solution, a scattering field function which is a function of a field where the scattered wave is generated at each point in a space having the same order as the number of the independent variables,
wherein, in the step of radiating and the step of receiving, a transmitting antenna element radiating the wave to the target object and a receiving antenna element receiving the scattered wave are moved in a pair, and
wherein scattering tomography according to a monostatic method is used in the imaging method.

2. The imaging method according to claim 1 ,
Wherein the shape indicated by the analysis model is a shape of a cone,
wherein the imaging function is expressed by the following Equation (A), and
wherein, in the step of reconstructing the image, the image regarding the internal information of the target object is reconstructed by using a function expressed by the following Equation (B) which is obtained by integrating the imaging function with respect to θ:

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Assignees

• Univ Kobe Nat Univ Corp
• Integral Geometry Science Inc

Inventors

• Kimura Kenjiro
• Kimura Noriaki

Classifications

• A61B6/032

  Transmission computed tomography [CT] · CPC title

• G06T7/50

  Depth or shape recovery · CPC title

• H04N19/172

  the region being a picture, frame or field · CPC title

• G01N22/02

  Investigating the presence of flaws · CPC title

• G06T11/003 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic