Patent ID: 6993111

Claim:
A system for inspecting an object having a direction of motion and a speed S in said direction of motion, said system having an improved spatial resolution and comprising: (a) an electron source that provides a pencil beam of electrons; (b) an electromagnet assembly that receives said pencil beam of electrons and that directs said pencil beam to form a scanning beam; (c) a linear target that is struck by said scanning beam along an x-ray source line and producing x-ray cone beams from x-ray cone beam sources in said x-ray source line when struck by said electron scanning beam, said x-ray source line having a length L and said scanning beam moving said length L in time T; (d) a slit collimator that receives said x-ray cone beams and emits x-ray fan beams in a fan beam plane that is tilted relative to a plane that is perpendicular to said direction of motion by an angle θ=sin −1 (S*T)/L); (e) an array of x-ray detectors in said fan beam plane that detects said x-ray fan beams as detected x-rays and provides signals corresponding to the flux intensity of said detected x-rays; and (f) a processor that receives said signals and produces images of selected planes through said object.