Digitized frequency modulated thermal wave imaging for detection and estimation of osteoporosis

Abstract

In recent decades active infrared thermography gained vital importance in the field of non-destructive testing and evaluation. It is non-invasive, non-ionizing, reliable, quantitative and qualitative imaging modality for estimation of properties of surface and subsurface abnormalities in various biomaterials. Recently introduced non-periodic thermal excitation schemes for the active infrared thermography gained attention in thermal imaging community by providing a solution to overcome the constrains associated with the traditional pulse and lock-in infrared thermography methods. Among these thermographic methods, digitized frequency modulated thermal wave imaging is one of the imaging modality which supports the principle of pulse compression to overcome constrains associated with traditional methods. This work proposes an analytical solution for digitized frequency modulated thermal wave imaging, which is used for estimation of osteoporosis stages in multilayer human bone model. In order to validate the proposed analytical approach, the results obtained from the analytical approach has been compared with the numerically obtained results from a commercially available simulator (COMSOL Multiphysics) by taking correlation coefficient as a figure of merit.