Patent ID: 7303132
Filing Date: 2007-12-04
Classification: G02B,G06K,H01S

Abstract:
1. An x-ray object scanning-tunnel system for automatically acquiring and linking object identity and attribute information about each object transported through said x-ray object scanning-tunnel system while bearing a bar code symbol and/or identifying graphical indicia on the exterior surface thereof, said x-ray object scanning-tunnel system comprising: a scanning-tunnel housing having an input port and an output port, through which one or more objects can be transported; a planar light illumination (PLIIM) based subsystem, integrated within said scanning-tunnel housing, and including an x-ray scanning subsystem mounted within said scanning-tunnel housing, for producing an x-radiation energy beam for scanning the interior and/or contents of each object transported through said scanning-tunnel housing, and automatically producing x-radiation images of said interior and/or contents; and an information linking computer subsystem programmed for automatically linking (i) x-radiation images of the interior and/or contents of each said transported object produced by said x-ray scanning subsystem, with (ii) object identification information produced by said PLIIM-based subsystem, for storage within a relational database management system (RDBMS) for subsequent access and retrieval.