Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Alexander Eitel

Roland Proksa

Rolf Karl Otto Behling

Lester Donald Miller

Carolina Ribbing

The present invention relates to a device () and a method () for determining a status of an X-ray tube () of an X-ray system (). Due to ageing and/or wear of the X-ray tube, the spectrum of the X-ray radiation () provided by the X-ray tube may change over the operation time of the X-ray tube. The present invention therefore suggests evaluating spectrally different values detected with an X-ray detector arrangement () of the X-ray system. A reference data set representing a reference condition of the X-ray tube by a plurality of spectrally different reference-values () and a working data set representing an aged condition of the X-ray tube by a plurality of spectrally different working-values () of detected X-ray radiation are used to determine an equivalent filtration function for an filtration material influencing a source X-ray radiation () emitted by an anode () of the X-ray tube. Accordingly, the filtration function provides the information about the material being used for the filtration and/or its length, which may provide the basis to determine the condition and thus the status of the X-ray tube.

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Hamburg, Germany

Alexander Eitel