Detector on wheel system (flying spot)
AssigneeAmerican Science and Engineering, Inc.
InventorMartin Annis
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An arc-shaped X-ray beam penetrates an arcual cross-sectional area of a body and the attentuated transmitted beam irradiates a portion of a circular array of detectors on a rotating disc. The detectors operate to generate signals proportional to the intensity of the incident transmitted radiation. The beam and detectors are moved along the axis of the body during rotation of the disc to irradiate adjacent cross-sectional areas of the body. A computer operated CRT receives the detector signals and displays an image of the radiation attentuation characteristics of the scanned arcual areas.
Claims35
A radiant energy imaging apparatus for displaying the characteristic radiation absorption of cross-sectional areas of an irradiated body, comprising:
- source means for generating penetrating radiation;
- collimating means for interrupting said radiation to pass an arc-shaped fan beam of radiation and to direct said fan beam to pass through a corresponding arc-shaped cross section of said irradiated body;
- a plurality of detectors arranged in an arc-shaped curve for receiving the unattenuated radiation transmitted through said arc-shaped cross section of the body and generating electrical signals corresponding to the intensity of the unattenuated radiation;
- means for rotating said detectors to scan each of said detectors at least once across the unattenuated radiation transmitted through a particular cross section of the body;
- displacement means for relatively displacing said detectors and said fan beam along the axis of said body to irradiate and to measure the unattenuated transmitted radiation through successive cross sectional areas of the body;
- and
- display means responsive to said detector electrical signals to display a two dimensional representation of the characteristic radiation absorption of the scanned cross-sectional areas of the body.
Radiant energy imaging apparatus comprising:
- source means for generating an arc-shaped beam of penetrating radiant energy;
- an array of radiant energy detectors defining a curve for receiving radiant energy from said arc-shaped beam;
- means for rotating said array of detectors to provide for each detector an image signal representative of the radiant energy response of an arc-shaped area of a medium that is traversed by said beam along a path to said detectors;
- means for relatively displacing said medium and an assembly including said source and said detectors to establish relative translating motion so that the image signals of said array of detectors are representative of the radiant energy response of a series of parallel arc-shaped areas of the medium;
- and
- display means responsive to said image signals for producing a two-dimensional image representative of said radiant energy response.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.