Patent ID: 6088423
Filing Date: 2000-07-11
Classification: G01V

Abstract:
A multi view x-ray baggage inspection method for detecting contraband in baggage comprising:moving baggage through at least three differently oriented x-ray beams which are spaced from each other in the direction of baggage movement through a tunnel having sides, said beams emanating from respective x-ray sources, each pair of sources being spaced from each other by at least a major portion of a side of the tunnel;deriving dual energy digital x-ray data related to interactions between the baggage and the three x-ray beams;processing the x-ray data with a computer to identify likely individual objects in the baggage and to produce digital estimates related to effective atomic number and digital estimates related to mass density of the likely objects; andfinding the likely presence of contraband in the baggage by testing the estimates relative to multi-dimensional space in which one dimension relates to density and another to effective atomic number.