Decision Sciences International Corporation

Sean Simon

Priscilla Kurnadi

Michael James Sossong

Joel Kindem

Chuanyong Bai

Shawn McKenney

Matthew Steiger

Weidong Luo

Thomas Taylor

Anthony Crego

Peter Lam

Imaging technology using high energy charged particles can be used to image an object of inspection such as a blast furnace. An example method of imaging a blast furnace includes performing a first moving operation by moving a first particle tracking detector and a second particle tracking detector up or down movement along a height of the blast furnace; performing a second moving operation by moving the first particle tracking detector and the second particle tracking detector clockwise or counterclockwise movement around the blast furnace; and receiving, by the first particle tracking detector, incoming charged particles; receiving, by the second particle tracking detector, outgoing charged particles transiting through the blast furnace; and producing an image of a volume of interest located in between the first particle tracking detector and the second particle tracking detector by processing electrical signals corresponding to the received incoming and outgoing charged particles.

System and methods of charged particle detectors for blast furnace imaging

Techniques, systems, and devices are disclosed for analyzing a point of closest approach (PoCA) image of a volume of interest (VOI) comprising a set of recorded PoCA points from charged particle detector measurements to detect an object within the VOI. The VOI is partitioned into a set of equally-sized bins with each bin including a subset of the PoCA points. A bin metric is determined for each bin. A subset of the bins is selected based on the detected bin metric with the subset of bins being most likely to contain objects. A potential object for each selected bin is determined by determining a location and a size for the potential object based at least on the PoCAs inside the bin. A figure of merit (FOM) of the potential object is determined as a measure of the likelihood that the potential object is truly a threat object.

Detection of an object within a volume of interest

Disclosed technology can provide a process for generating reconstructed muon image resolution to optimize the use of the limited angular range muon track data collected by a muon tomography system. In one aspect, a process for improving reconstructed muon image resolution for a volume of interest (VOI) imaged by a muon tomography system includes: collecting raw muon track data of cosmic ray muon tracks passing through the VOI; grouping the raw muon track data into two or more subsets of tracks based on at least one angular distribution of the muon tracks in the raw muon track data; generating a set of images of the VOI based on the two or more subsets of tracks; and combining information from the set of reconstructed images and a reconstructed image based on the full set of the raw muon track data to obtain a resulting reconstructed image of the VOI.

Muon tomography imaging improvement using optimized limited angle data

Methods, devices, systems and computer program products produce and utilize improved momentum estimates for charged particles such as electrons and muons. One method for measuring momentum includes obtaining charged particle tomographic data at one or more charged particle position detectors corresponding to scattering angles of charged particles that pass through an object volume. The distribution of scattering angles associated with the charged particles is determined using measured data collected from the position detectors, based on deviations of local trajectories of the charged particles in one or more planes relative to a reference trajectory. The method also includes determining a length of the scattering material based on the characteristics of the position detectors and the charged particles' angle of incidence on the position detectors, and obtaining charged particle momentum estimates based on the determined distribution of scattering angles and the length of the scattering material.

Charged particle tomography with improved momentum estimation

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Vista, CA, United States of America

Sean Simon