Patent ID: 7033076

Claim:
A method of stabilizing an x-ray source of an electron beam tomography (EBT) system in which an electron beam impinges upon a target ring at a beam spot that produces an x-ray fan beam detected by a plurality of detector arrays, said method comprising: determining changes in x-ray intensity for detecting elements in each detector array for a series of imaging sweeps during an initial activation of the EBT system; deriving a set of scale factors based on the determined change in x-ray intensity for each imaging sweep; and modifying at least one of a trajectory and deflection of the electron beam during multiple imaging sweeps based on the derived scale factors for each imaging sweep to ensure that the corresponding beam spot maintains substantially the same angular position on the target ring, thereby ensuring that a resulting x-ray fan beam maintains the same position on the surfaces of the plurality of the detector arrays, through multiple imaging sweeps.