Dualtomo
The design and development of high-resolution dual-energy X-ray Radioscopic and Tomographic mobile and autonomous system destined for fast identification of the explosive materials during the antitero interventions - acronym DUALTOMO .
Project number: 81-003/18.09.2007
R&D Programme: PNII PC D8 Security, financed trough CNMP
Project duration: 2007-2010
Project coordinator: ACCENT PRO 2000 S.R.L.
Project manager: Dr.Ing.Fiz. Mihai IOVEA;
Contact Info:
Address:
Nerva Traian 1, Bl K6, Sc 1, Ap 26,
Bucharest S3
031041 - ROMANIA
Tel/Fax/Answering machine: (4021)3204759
Mobile: (40) 745182660
Web Site:http://www.accent.ro"
E-mails: office@accent.ro ;
miovea@pcnet.ro
Partners:
Web page:
http://www.accent.ro/dualtomo.html
Project main goal:
We aim to design and prototype manufacture a new dual-energy X-ray Radioscopy and Tomography system dedicated for the use within antitero interventions for the fast identification of the content of the suspect luggage and packages. More than any of the already existing systems from the market, that offers only images of the overlapped objects projections from luggage with coloured map of organic materials (a very vague class of materials which could equally be: water, soap, chocolate or C4, Semtex, etc), we hereby want to implement the following features:
- Radioscopic images of luggage content represented in values of Atomic effective Number and computing the luggage weight;
- 2D tomograms or cross-sections of scanned luggage with representations in Atomic effective Number and Density values, without any inside objects superimposing;
- Measurement and identification of the dangerous substances by dual-energy X-rays Radioscopy and Tomography, trough high-accuracy measurements of Atomic effective Number and Density values and comparison with values from a database.
The general and specific objectives of the project are the followings:
- Design, optimization and development of an autonomous mobile X-Ray system destined for increasing the antitero interventions efficiency by fast and accurate identification of the explosives from the suspect baggage and packages;
- Design and development of a application-dedicated autonomous 2D detector based on fast translation of an X-ray linear array detector.
- Design and development of a dedicated mechanical assembly for scanning geometries optimization in order to reach a very short time of intervention;
- X-ray dual-energy technology improvement within the mobile radioscopy and tomography
- Modeling and optimization of the function relating the Zeff and Density values with two energies radiation attenuation coefficients;
- Modeling and development of high accuracy system calibration method;
- Doing tests and experiments for improving the system performance;
- Presentation of the system within conferences, demonstrations for the possible beneficiaries, performance presentation and promotion;
- Presentation of some results in scientific papers.
The current stage of the project:
The DUALTOMO system contains dedicated components (see Figure 1) that could be easily manually configured in various accurate geometries for radioscopic and.or tomographic investigations, like: portable and self-powered, in situ or in laboratory Radioscopy and 2Dand 3D Fan-beam or Laminography/Tomosyntesis Tomography for investigatef onjects having maximum weight of 30 Kg and size within 50 cm x 50 cm x 55 cm.
Click to enlarge Figure 1 : The DUALTOMO system main components
The DUALTOMO system contains the following main subassemblies:
- The Detectors Panel that is a 2D dual-energy (linear array scanning based) X-Ray detector with the main charcteristics:
- The active 2D size: 51 cm * 55 cm
- Detector size: 0.4 mm (on request: 0.05 mm, 0.1 mm, 0.2 mm, or 0.8 mm)
- Scaning speed: programmable between 1 to 30 seconds
- Integration time per line: programmable between 0.5 to 100 mS
- Digital-analog converter: 16 bits
- Global offset compensation: yes, full 16 bits range
- Programmable gain in the ranges: ±0.1V; ±0.2V; ±0.5V; ±1V; ±2V; ±5V; ±10V;
- X-Ray Source:portable and programmable; 160 kV, 0.5 mA
- The Magnification support destined for supporting, aligning and precise positioning the Detectors Panel, X-ray source and object placed on Rotating or Translating module;
- X-ray source Support is a carriage that supports the X-ray Source for aligning and precise positioning it on Magnification support;
- Rotation module is a rotating table where the object is placed for Radioscopy or Fan-Beam Tomography investigation;
- Translation module is a translation table where the object si placed for Radioscopy or Laminography/Tomosynthesis Tomography investigation;
Figure 2 presents the main security application - the in situ luggage investigation - that uses the autonomous and portable configuration with X-ray source and portable configuration with X-Ray source and Detectors Panel.
Click to enlarge Figure 2 : The main DUALTOMO portable security application with Detectors panel and X-ray source components
The Detectors Panel, the Magnification support, the X-ray source, the X-ray source support, the Rotation/Translation module and the notebook configuration for producing classical and dual-energy Radioscopy/tomography images are presented in Figure 3. In Figure 4 is presented a baggage scan with resolution indicator included and in Figure 5 a classical attenuation together with a dual-energy baggage scan images are presented.
