ISVR-SPCG-127: X-ray tomographic image reconstruction with missing data from components of known shape.

Non-destructive testing is a key technology in many defense research projects. It is used in most ordnance testing facilities and plays a key role in ensuring the safety, efficiency and effectiveness of a country’s nuclear program. X-ray based inspection techniques are becoming increasingly important in this field, especially x-ray tomographic systems, that allow us to non-destructively inspect internal structures and faults in objects.

This PhD project will look at x-ray imaging applications where an object is made up of different materials and where these different materials vary widely in their x-ray absorption properties. In this setting, parts of the object will often be opaque to x-ray transmission whilst other parts do not offer significant x-ray contrast, which means that standard tomographic techniques will not be applicable.
You will address this challenge by developing advanced tomographic data analysis tools that will combine knowledge of an object’s shape with x-ray tomographic measurements. This project will be largely computational, requiring you to develop new tomographic reconstruction algorithms and to implement these to run on the latest graphical processing units for efficient computation. You will also have the opportunity to collect x-ray data in one of our industrial x-ray scanners and to use this data to evaluate the performance of your new methods.

You will join a team of PhD students and Postdoctoral Researchers that work on a range of issues in x-ray tomographic reconstruction. You will have access to the University of Southampton’s world leading x-ray imaging centre and supercomputing facilities. It is anticipated that you will spend part of your second and third year with our partner institution in Lyon, France.
This project is funded by the joint PhD program of the UK’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the French Direction Générale de l’Armement and is in collaboration with the UK’s Atomic Weapon Establishment (AWE). This work is also linked to a large UK research council funded project that will use similar techniques for the inspection of components in the aerospace industry.
Due to restrictions by the funding body, this position is only open to UK and French nationals. Funding is conditional on the successful outcome of the related UK research council funded project that is currently under review.

If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Thomas Blumensath, Signal Processing and Control research group, Email: [Email Address Removed] Tel: +44 (0) 2380 59 3224.