Evaluation of 3-dimensional Electrical Impedance Tomography-Arrays for Underwater Object Detection

Underwater detection and localization infrastructure has gained more importance in the recent years. Buried objects like high-voltage power transmission cables need to be localized reliably. For successful localization, the detection of such objects is indispensable. The Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is an imaging method, which generates an artificial current flow to detect the environment in a certain area around the EIT electrode-array. The 3-dimensional design of this array is not yet investigated for underwater detection of metallic objects. It is an open issue whether and to what extent the design influences detection. In this work, we analyze multiple EIT-array designs and evaluate their detection capability. For this, we introduce and investigate four 2- and 3-dimensional EIT-array designs. We model these designs and evaluate the measurable electrical potentials. We state, that the closer electrodes of the array are to an detectable object, the higher is the detection capability of the whole system. We also found out, that current flows in parallel to parts of the EIT-array do decrease the detection capability. In the future, we want to focus on prototyping our EIT detection system based on these results and test the detection capability in a real outdoor environment afterwards.