Inverse Problems typically involve the recovery of some physical characteristics of a material from its response to some excitation such as electromagnetic fields, heat, or mechanical vibrations. Inverse problems are often illposed, which means the process of recovering the unknown parameters is very sensitive to errors in the measured response.
We look at both practical and theoretical aspects of the subject, working closely with engineers and scientists in industrial and medical research, as well as other mathematicians.
Some of the applications of inverse problems in which we are interested:
- Medical imaging using electricity (EIT), for example to reduce ventilator related lung injury Medical optical tomography.
- Industrial process monitoring using electrical measurement.
- Photoelasticity - visualisation of the stress inside a transparent object.
- Geophysical imaging.
- Electromagnetic monitoring of molten metal flow.
- Airport X-ray scanners.
- X-ray tomography in material science.
- Next generation metal detectors for security screening and land mine detection.
X-ray image copyright and supplied courtesy of the Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester.
We are often on the look out for PhD students in both pure and applied aspects of inverse problems, short term post-doctoral researchers, MSc and undergraduates looking for projects or vacation work. We often have funding for small programming projects involving Finite Elements and numerical methods for Inverse Problems, usually in Matlab and c or c++.
Contact Bill Lionheart.
- British Workshops on Inverse Problems, and British Inverse Problems Society
- Electrical Impedance and Diffuse Optical Tomography Reconstruction Software (EIDORS) project