Patent ID: 8690427

Claim:
A method for deriving one or more specified characteristics of an inspected object, the method comprising: a. activating a single source of energetic particles to generate a fan beam of energetic particles; b. detecting the fan beam of energetic particles with a plurality of detector modules, the plurality of detector modules distributed among a plurality of detector plates arcuately disposed substantially in a single plane at a distance from the single source of energetic particles, each of the detector modules comprising a plurality of detector elements, and a subset plurality of the detector modules disposed on one remotely activated alignment plate of a plurality of remotely activated alignment plates, c. aligning the plurality of detector modules by activation of the plurality of alignment plates on the basis of a detection signal generated by each of the detector elements due to activation of the single source of energetic particles such that each of the plurality of detector elements detects a unique portion of the fan beam; d. irradiating the inspected object with a plurality of pulses of penetrating radiation; e. detecting the penetrating radiation after traversal of the inspected object thereby and generating an imaging signal; and f. processing the imaging signal to derive an image of the inspected object.