Three-dimensional analysis on resistance tomography sensors and its application in inspection of milk flow

3D simulation of ERT sensor is established with multi-physical coupling software COMSOL and MATLAB7.0, analyze the limitation of ERT system 3D sensor field and deeply study the influence on the established fields by sizes of electrodes and frequency characteristics. Thus, design two kinds of sensors of pointed electrode array and rectangular-shaped electrode array and also carry out comparison test on frequency characteristics during the detection of milk flows.. The result shows that increasing width and height of electrodes is favorable for improving uniformity of sensitivity field in a radial and axial distributions. It also shows that increasing area of electrodes can reduce “Contact resistance” and have more stable frequency characteristic, which is good for increasing SNR of ERT system, thereby, providing evidence and convenience for optimization design of sensors and reconstruction of images.