Newton's method based self calibration for a 3D ultrasound tomography system

A device for 3D ultrasound computer tomography system is currently under development at KIT with the goal of high-resolution images for early breast cancer detection. With its semi-ellipsoidal positioning of 2041 ultrasound transducers around the breast in space, full 3D images can be reconstructed. Calibration process of such a complex system is very time-consuming and difficult. This paper proposes a Newton's method based self calibration using time-of-flight measurements between each emitter and receiver. One unique feature of this method is the separation of each potential error sources in the system and sequential calibration according to their magnitudes. This enables the analysis of each error component in the system. Simulation and application on real data have both shown sub-wavelength accuracy in the calibration results.