Diffuse optical imaging (DOI) providing functional information of tissues has drawn great attention for the last two decades [1]. Near infrared (NIR) DOI systems composed of scanning equipment, opt-electrical measuring module, system control, and data processing and image reconstruction schemes are developed for the screening and diagnosis of breast tumors. Mostly, the scanning equipment belonging to fixed source-and-detector configuration limits computed image resolution to an extent [2-4]. To cope with the issue, a flexible ring-scanning mechanism design has been investigated and analyzed in order to obtain the most probable effectiveness and efficiency while retaining acceptable scanning time. Before the detail design of ring-scanning equipment was conducted, finite-element-based image reconstruction schemes were performed to obtain tomographical images through changing source-and-detection arrangement of the ring-scanning mechanism. From the simulation [5], the 2Z3S or 3Z3S configuration was found an apparently better design for the ring-scanning mechanism in terms of both the resolution of reconstructed optical-property images and the scanning time of equipment. Following the previous study, this technical brief demonstrates the design, fabrication, and test of the prototype ring-scanning equipment.
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