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Article:Hoyle, B.S., Jia, X., Podd, F.J.W. et al. (6 more authors) (2001) Design and application of a multi-modal process tomography system. Measurement Science and Technology, 12 (8 ABSTRACTThis paper presents a design and application study of an integrated multi-modal system designed to support a range of common modalities: electrical resistance, electrical capacitance and ultrasonic tomography. Such a system is designed for use with complex processes that exhibit behaviour changes over time and space, and thus demand equally diverse sensing modalities. A multi-modal process tomography system able to exploit multiple sensor modes must permit the integration of their data, probably centred upon a composite process model. The paper presents an overview of this approach followed by an overview of the systems engineering and integrated design constraints. These include a range of hardware oriented challenges: 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 facilitate data fusion; and finally the features to enable successful fusion and interpretation. A range of software aspects are also reviewed: the need to support differing front-end sensors for each modality in a generic fashion; the need to communicate with front end data pre-processing and packing systems; the need to integrate the data to allow data fusion; and finally to enable successful interpretation. The review of the system concepts is illustrated with an application to the study of a complex multi-component process.

Background Plant roots are complex, three-dimensional structures that play a central role in anchorage, water and nutrient acquisition, storage and interaction with rhizosphere microbes. Studying the development of the plant root system architecture is inherently difficult as soil is not a transparent medium. Results This study uses electrical impedance tomography (EIT) to visualise oilseed rape root development in horticultural compost. The development of healthy, control plants and those infected with the gall-forming pathogen, Plasmodiophora brassicae —the causative agent of clubroot disease—were compared. EIT measurements were used to quantify the development of the root system and distinguish between control and infected plants at the onset of gall formation, approximately 20 days after inoculation. Although clear and stark differences between healthy and infected plants were obtained by careful (and hence laborious) packing of the growth medium in layers within the pots; clubroot identification is still possible without a laborious vessel filling protocol. Conclusions These results demonstrate the utility of EIT as a low-cost, non-invasive, non-destructive method for characterising root system architecture and plant-pathogen interactions in opaque growth media. As such it offers advantages over other root characterisation techniques and has the potential to act as a low-cost tool for plant phenotyping. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13007-019-0438-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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