Grumman Aerospace Corporation

Trex Medical Corporation

Lim H Cheung

Richard J Gran

A unique digital imaging device includes the digital imager, a mammography machine including the digital imager, a method for processing the digital image obtained by the digital imager, a local area network (LAN) comprising a number of mammography machines and one or more work stations, and a wide area network (WAN) for transmitting digital images to remote locations. The digital imager according to the present invention comprises a large area, single exposure digital imaging device is provided that allows a number of electronic imagers to be butted together to form an array of electronic imagers large enough to image an entire breast in a single exposure. A preferred embodiment of the digital imager comprises an optical system, such as fiber optic bundles, optically coupled with the surface of the electronic imager. The optical systems may have a surface larger than the electronic sensors, and may be butted together to provide a gap-free imaging surface.

Large area array single exposure digital mammography

Large area array, single exposure digital mammography

An imaging system for a precision mammographic needle biopsy system includes an x-ray camera whose housing includes a compression panel for the breast, a portion of the compression panel being transparent to X-rays that have passed through the breast so that the surface on which the breast is positioned forms the outside surface of the camera head. Adjacent the interior of the transparent surface, are a scintillator and optics for guiding an image formed when X-rays impinge upon the scintillation material to a CCD board within a hermetically sealed inner camera housing. The optics are in the form of a fiber optic coupler made up of a bundle of coherent optical fibers having scintillation material coated at ends thereof to provide appropriate magnification of the image, thereby eliminating the need for lenses or mirrors, image intensifiers, and the like, and providing improved resolution because of the direct coupling of the scintillation material at the ends of the fibers and the CCD array. The x-ray camera contains within its housing all necessary analog and digital circuitry, including clock signal generating circuitry, power and control circuitry, an analog-to-digital converter, and a digital bus interface, for processing and converting a captured image into a digital image suitable for transmission over a standard digital bus for further processing, the camera thus being compatible, without modification, with a wide variety of controllers and imaging processing equipment.

Digital X-ray camera for precision mammographic needle biopsy system

An infra-red sensor system for all weather, day and night traffic surveillance of ground based vehicles. The infra-red sensor system comprises system comprises an infra-red, focal plane array detector, signal processors, a communications interface and a central computer. The infra-red, focal plane array detector senses the heat emitted from vehicles passing within the field of view. Information collected from the array detector is input to signal processors which are programmed with tracking algorithms and other application specific algorithms to extract and calculate meaningful traffic data from the infra-red image captured by the array detector. The meaningful data includes the location, speed and acceleration of all vehicles passing within the field of view of the array detector. The information from the signal processors is transmitted to the central computer via the communications interface for further processing and dissemination of information.

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Setauket, NY, United States of America

Lim H Cheung