Multilateration-based photoacoustic tomography for reconstruction-free 3D particle localization

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Optics
• Acoustic Imaging
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is vital for mapping absorptive targets.
• Current PAT methods often require dense transducer arrays and heavy computation, limiting their use.
• Accessibility and scalability challenges hinder widespread PAT adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel multilateration-based photoacoustic tomography (MPAT) method.
• To enable precise 3D localization of photoacoustic sources with minimal transducers.
• To provide a reconstruction-free approach for enhanced PAT applications.

Main Methods:

• Developed a multilateration-based photoacoustic tomography (MPAT) system.
• Utilized a sparse array of ultrasonic transducers for signal detection.
• Employed multilateration principles for source localization without image reconstruction.
• Validated the method through simulations and experimental studies.

Main Results:

• Achieved micrometer-level precision in 3D multilateration using few transducers.
• Successfully captured both static distributions and dynamic particle trajectories.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of reconstruction-free particle localization.
• MPAT offers improved accessibility and scalability over traditional PAT.

Conclusions:

• MPAT provides a precise, reconstruction-free method for 3D photoacoustic source localization.
• The technique enhances accessibility and scalability by using sparse transducer arrays.
• MPAT is suitable for tracking static distributions and dynamic particle movements.
• This work establishes a framework for sparse, geometry-flexible particle multilateration.