Inline Computed Tomography

Abstract: 

X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) has been applied in industry for quality and defect control in food products. However, conventional CT systems are neither cost effective nor flexible, making the deployment of such technology unfeasible for many industrial environments. We propose a simple and cost effective X-ray imaging setup that comprises a linear translation of the object in a conveyor belt with a fixed X-ray source and detector, with which a small number of X-ray projections can be acquired within a limited angular range. Furthermore, we improved the reconstruction results with the following strategies: (i) an image acquisition involving object rotation during a linear translation in the conveyor-belt; and (ii) an image reconstruction incorporating prior knowledge of the object support (e.g., obtained from optic sensors). Experiments demonstrate substantial improvement of the reconstruction quality compared to conventional reconstruction methods.

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