Patent ID: 6923374

Claim:
A pulsed fast neutron analysis (PFNA) based object scanning-tunnel system for automatically acquiring and linking object identity and attribute information about each object transported through said PFNA object scanning-tunnel system while bearing a bar code symbol and/or identifying graphical indicia on the exterior surface thereof, said PFNA based 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 and imaging (PLIIM) based subsystem, integrated within said scanning-tunnel housing, and including a pair of planar light illumination arrays (PLIAs) for producing a planar light illumination beam (PLIB) for illuminating the exterior surface of each object and the bar code symbol thereon as said object is transported through said scanning tunnel, a linear image formation and detection (IFD) module for automatically forming and detecting digital linear images of the bar code symbol thereon, as said object is transported through said scanning tunnel, and an image processing computer for buffering and processing said digital linear images of said object so to construct a 2-D image of the bar code symbol and/or graphical indicia on said object, and processing said 2-D image so as to read said bar code symbol, and identify said object by producing object identity information; a PFNA scanning subsystem mounted within said scanning-tunnel housing, for producing a neutron energy beam for scanning the interior and/or contents of each object transported through said scanning tunnel, and automatically producing PFNA images of said interior and/or contents; and an information linking computer subsystem programmed for automatically linking (i) PFNA images of the interior and/or contents of each said transported object produced by said PFNA 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.