Multi-Sensor Process Tomography System Design: Part 1 ? Systems and Hardware Engineering

B S Hoyle1, F J W Podd1, H I Schlaberg1, M Wang3, R A Williams3, and T A York2

1. Institute of Integrated Information Systems, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering,

   University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK,

   email: b.s.hoyle@leeds.ac.uk, f.j.w.podd@leeds.ac.uk, h.i.schlaberg@leeds.ac.uk

2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, UMIST, Manchester, M60 1QD, UK, email: h.mccann@umist.ac.uk, t.a.york@umist.ac.uk

3. Particle and Colloid Engineering Group, School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK,

   email: m.wang@leeds.ac.uk, r.a.williams@leeds.ac.uk.

All authors are members of the Virtual Centre for Industrial Process Tomography

Abstract - This paper deals with the conceptual design of an integrated multi- modal system which can offer a 'plug and play' capability. It deals with the design constraints of such systems: the complexity and specificity of the front end electronics for each modality; the need for front end data pre-processing and packing; the need to integrate the data to allow data fusion; and finally the features to enable successful data fusion and interpretation. This paper, Part 1, focuses upon the composite systems engineering and integrated hardware. A further paper, Part 2, deals with the data processing and system software design.

Keywords: multi-sensor tomography, multi-modal tomography, data fusion