Skip to main content
European Commission logo print header

Intelligent Imaging Sensors for Industry, Health and Security - I-ImaS

Final Report Summary - I-IMAS (Intelligent imaging sensors for industry, health and security)

The I-IMAS project aimed to design and develop a new adaptive X-ray imaging system using online exposure control in order to create locally optimised images. The system allowed real-time image analysis during acquisition, thereby enabling real-time exposure adjustment. The project focused on two areas as a proof of principal; namely the areas of mammography and dental radiology. The objectives of the project are stated below:
- survey analysis in order to identify the requirements for an intelligent imaging system;
- isolation of the regions which identify pathology in mammographic and dental images and obtainment of statistical samples;
- elaboration of the results and use of steering algorithms in order to acquire optimal information;
- design and simulation of the I-IMAS sensor;
- manufacture and testing of the sensors;
- design of a data acquisition system (DAQ) as well as an I-IMAS DAQ (IDAQ);
- evaluation of the I-IMAS system.

The performed work consisted in three phases, namely the system design phase which related to an analysis of the important cues to diagnostic information in an image and how these might be monitored by an intelligent sensor, the system manufacture phase which related to CMOS and I-IMAS sensors which incorporated the appropriate level of intelligence and the system testing phase in which the success of the I-IMAS technology, when incorporated into an adaptive imaging system, was evaluated.

Amongst the major achievements was the design of a custom-built data acquisition system (IDAQ) which was able to obtain data from twenty sensors simultaneously whilst applying basic statistical processing of ten sensors and then pass the results through a steering algorithm and afterwards send the results to the mechanical control system of the I-IMAS. The I-IMAS system enabled possible to acquire optimal information with a given time and dose constraint and to acquire optimally exposed images with variable density. The project showed that the same image quality can be achieved with lower dose using the I-IMAS system compared with conventional mammography systems.