System and Method for inspecting an object using spatially and spectrally distinguished beams

Abstract

A system and method for inspecting an object, the system and method comprising a source for generating a penetrating radiation beam for irradiating the object, the beam having, for each instant of time, an instantaneous energy spectrum of intensity, a shaper for modulating the generated beam, thereby creating a shaped beam, the shaper comprising at least a first section and a second section, the first section attenuating the intensity of a portion of the generated beam by a first attenuation factor and the second section attenuating the intensity of another portion of the generated beam by a second attenuation factor, and at least one detector for detecting the shaped beam after the shaped beam interacts with the object.

Description

[0001] This application is a combination-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 502,093, filed Feb. 10, 2000, entitled SPECTRALLY SHAPED X-RAY INSPECTION SYSTEM and bearing attorney docket number 1945 / A09, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein, in its entirety, by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD AND BACKGROUND ART[0002] The invention relates to systems and methods for inspecting objects and, more particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods for inspecting objects a plurality of radiation beams characterized by distinctive energy spectra.[0003] As discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 502,093, the design of an x-ray inspection system to examine heterogeneous cargo requires joint consideration of conflicting requirements for penetration, radiation dosage, and sensitivity. For example, the high-energy x-ray components of a radiation beam from a 3 MeV x-ray accelerator penetrate approximately 3 times farther through iron than do the high-energy x-ray ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] In accordance with a second aspect of the invention, a system and method for inspecting an object comprises a source for generating a penetrating radiation beam for irradiating the object, the beam having, for each instant of time, an instantaneous energy spectrum of intensity, a shaper for modulating the generated beam, thereby creating a shaped beam, the shaper comprising at least a first section and a second section, the first section attenuating the intensity of a portion of the generated beam by a first attenuation factor and the second section attenuating the intensity of another portion of the generated beam by a second attenuation factor, a first detector for detecting the shaped beam attenuated by the first attenuation factor after the shaped beam interacts with the object, and a second detector for detecting the shaped beam attenuated by the second attenuation factor after the shaped beam interacts with the object.

Problems solved by technology

In addition, the high-energy x-ray components of a radiation beam are not as "sensitive" for distinguishing among materials as the low-energy x-ray components of a radiation beam.

However, the high-energy x-ray components, in turn, increase the ambient radiation dose-the dose of scattered radiation in the surrounding environment.

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