Scanning radiation sensor for multiple spots and apparatus and method of averaging radiation samples of same
AssigneeSquare D Company
InventorsEugene F. Kalley, Steven A. Ignatowicz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A scanning radiation sensor (10) for individually determining temperature of a plurality of spots (16') along a scan line (16) on a target (12) responds to inputs to a light marking apparatus (21, 29, 40, 21) to determine which of a plurality of samples produced during a scan cycle are to be selected for averaging (54, 54'). Averages are determined for each scan (54, 54') and then averages for each scan are averaged over multiple scans (56). Both spot target samples (Ts) and reference source samples (Rs) are averaged for improved accuracy, with target samples being converted to temperatures (52) before averaging.
Claims26
In a scanning radiation sensor, the improvement comprising:
- a. means for selectively marking with light a number of spots on a radiating target and for generating a plurality of marked spots from said spots for discrete temperature measurement of the target;
- and
- b. means responsive to said selectively marking means for concurrently individually measuring the radiation of each of said selected spots on the target for conversion to indications of temperature.
A method of measuring radiation with a scanning radiation sensor, comprising the steps of:
- a. selecting a number of spots at spaced locations along a preselected scan line segment for discrete temperature measurement;
- b. varying the size of each of said number of spots;
- c. producing a plurality of radiation samples for, and in accordance with the size of, each of said selected number of spots during a scan of said preselected scan line segment;
- d. converting said radiation samples to representations of radiation of said radiation samples;
- e. converting said representations of radiation of said radiation samples to representations of temperature of said radiation samples;
- f. generating an average temperature for said representations of temperature of said radiation samples produced during a scan of said selected number of spots to produce an average temperature for each of said selected number of spots during said scan.
In a scanning radiation sensor having at least one reference source and a radiation determining means for concurrently determining the radiation of a plurality of spots on a target, said scanning radiation sensor comprising:
- a. means for selectively marking with light a number of spots on said target to form said plurality of spots;
- b. means for producing a plurality of radiation samples for each of said plurality of spots;
- c. means for producing a plurality of radiation samples for the reference source;
- d. means for averaging the plurality of radiation samples of said reference source over multiple scans to determine an average reference radiation;
- and
- e. means corrected by the average reference radiation to determine the radiation of each of said plurality of spots with respect to the average reference radiation.
In a scanning radiation sensor, a method of determining the temperature of a target source of radiation, comprising the steps of:
- a. marking a scan line on the target with a plurality of spots;
- b. obtaining a plurality of samples of radiation from each of said plurality of spots;
- c. converting selected ones of said samples of radiation to representations of sample radiance for each of said plurality of spots;
- d. converting said representations of sample radiance for each of said plurality of spots to representations of sample temperature;
- and
- e. averaging the representations of sample temperature to develop an average representation of temperature of the target.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.