An adjoint field approach to Fisher information-based sensitivity analysis in electrical impedance tomography

An adjoint field approach is used to formulate a general numerical framework for Fisher information-based sensitivity analysis in electrical impedance tomography. General expressions are given for the gradients used in standard least-squares optimization, i.e. the Jacobian related to the forward problem, and it is shown that these gradient expressions are compatible with commonly used electrode models such as the shunt model and the complete electrode model. By using the adjoint field formulations together with a variational analysis, it is also shown how the computation of the Fisher information can be integrated with the gradient calculations used for optimization. It is furthermore described how the Fisher information analysis and the related sensitivity map can be used in a preconditioning strategy to obtain a well-balanced parameter sensitivity and improved performance for gradient-based quasi-Newton optimization algorithms in electrical impedance tomography. Numerical simulations as well as reconstructions based on experimental data are used to illustrate the sensitivity analysis and the performance of the improved inversion algorithm in a four-electrode measurement set-up.