The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.

The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.

Date of Patent:
Feb. 06, 1996

Filed:

Dec. 10, 1993
Applicant:
Inventors:

Kristoph D Krug, Framingham, MA (US);

Jay A Stein, Framingham, MA (US);

Adam L Taylor, Boston, MA (US);

Assignee:

Vivid Technologies, Inc., Waltham, MA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01N / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
382100 ; 378 53 ; 378 57 ; 382199 ;
Abstract

A device and method is provided for finding a specific material superimposed on an unknown background when the locations of the specific material and the background are unknown, for example, inside an item of baggage. The invention comprises exposing an area of an item to be inspected to x-rays of two substanitally different energies, making effective use of the characteristic material specific differences in photoelectric effect scattering and Compton scattering, and comparing the pairwise differential attenuation of the x-rays at nearby exposed subareas to determine whether differences in attenuation can be attributed to the presence of different amounts of the specific material overlying the respective subareas. The most probable subareas are indicated on a standard image on a monitor as being the most likely location of the overlying specific material.


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