The Boeing Company

Talion Edwards

Gary E Georgeson

Morteza Safai

Daniel James Wright

Yuan-Jye Wu

Rodney Stephen Wright

James E Engel

Matthew Todd Grimshaw

Taisia Tsukruk Lou

John William Finlayson

A system for quantifying x-ray backscatter system performance is disclosed. The system includes one or more x-ray backscatter detectors, an x-ray tube, a support, and a plurality of rods mounted on the support and arranged in groups. Each group of rods includes at least two rods having the same width. The system also includes a user interface configured to connect to the x-ray backscatter detectors to receive a backscatter signal from the x-ray backscatter detectors associated with the x-ray tube, where the user interface plots a modulation transfer function representing x-ray backscatter for each rod of the plurality of rods from x-rays transmitted by the x-ray tube.

System and method for quantifying x-ray backscatter system performance

A system for quantifying x-ray backscatter system performance may include a support; a plurality of rods mounted on the support; the rods of the plurality of rods arranged parallel to each other, having generally curved outer surfaces, and being arranged in groups of varying widths, each group of the groups having at least two of the rods of a same width; and a user interface configured to be connected to receive a backscatter signal from an x-ray backscatter detector associated with an x-ray tube, apply a transfer function to generate a transfer curve representing x-ray backscatter for each rod of the plurality of rods from x-rays transmitted by the x-ray tube.

System and method for quantifying X-ray backscatter system performance

A system for quantifying x-ray backscatter system performance may include a support, a plurality of rods mounted on the support, the rods of the plurality of rods arranged in parallel to each other, having generally curved outer surfaces, and being arranged in groups of varying widths, each group of the groups having at least two of the rods of a same width, and a user interface configured to be connected to receive a backscatter signal from an x-ray backscatter detector associated with an x-ray tube, and generate a display representing photon counts of x-ray backscatter for each rod of the plurality of rods from x-rays transmitted by the x-ray tube.

Exemplary systems and methods are provided for imaging a unit under test. Orientation of an imaging system is determined with a machine vision system, a unit under test is scanned with the imaging system, and the scanned image is processed into a substantially distortion-free image. The scanned image may be processed into a substantially distortion-free image by mapping a scanned image to coordinates determined by the machine vision system. By combining the position and orientation information collected at the time each image pixel is collected, the image can be assembled without distortion by mapping a detector signal to the appropriate image coordinate. Alternately, the scanned image may be processed into a substantially distortion-free image by mapping a scanned image to a predetermined matrix grid of coordinates, identifying distortion in the scanned image, and correcting identified distortion in the scanned image.

System and method for assembling substantially distortion-free images

A method and system for identifying foreign objection (FOD) in items such as aircraft are disclosed. The item may be imaged using x-ray backscatter before and after work is performed thereon. The image taken before work may be subtracted from the image taken after the work to provide a resultant image. The resultant image may indicate the presence of any FOD. Potential FOD in the resultant image may be checked against a database of known FOD to determine the identity thereof. By finding FOD, the occurrence of catastrophes such as aircraft crashes may be mitigated.

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Wentzville, MO, United States of America

Talion Edwards