Method and device for security-inspection of liquid articles with radiations

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and a device for security-inspection of liquid articles with radiations, which relate to the field of radiation inspection technology. The method comprises steps of acquiring original environment information, emitting radiation beams to transmit the liquid articles, receiving the radiation beams transmitted through the liquid articles to form multi-angle projection data, computing a radiation absorption coefficient of the liquid articles to be detected by inverse operation of the multi-angle projection data, based on the initial environmental information and the uniformity of the liquid articles, and comparing the radiation absorption coefficients with the preset data to get the relevant information of the liquid articles. Comparing with the prior art, the present invention is not subjected to affection of cuter package of the liquid article, and is advantageous of high anti-jamming high accuracy, high safety and reliability, low cost and small size.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features and advantages of the invention can be more clarified from the following detailed descriptions for the accompanying drawings. Wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a detection device according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 shows a structure diagram of the computer data processor in the inspection device of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows a flow chart of the detection method according to an embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 4 shows a functional block diagram of the computer data processor in the inspection device of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings the same reference numerals are used for denoting the same or similar components that are shown in different figures. For clarify, the detailed description of the known function and structure incorporated herein will be omitted, which would otherwise weaken the subject of the invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the structures of an inspection device according to an embodiment of the invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the detection device according to the invention comprises a radiation source 10 for emitting radiations for detection, e.g. a X-ray machine or a isotope (X-ray or γ-ray source) source; a carrier mechanism 30, which carries the liquid articles to be detected 20, can rotate around axis Z thereof, and can ascend or descend to take the liquid articles 20 into the detection area, thereby the radiations emitted by the radiation source 10 can transmit through the liquid articles 20; a detection and collection appliance 40, an integrated module of a detector and a data collector, which is used to detect the radiations transmitted through the liquid articles 20 to acquire analog signals, and convert the analog signals into digital signals, and hence output the scanning data of the liquid articles 20; a scan controller 50, which controls each component of whole system so that they operate synchronously; and a computer data processor 60 for processing the, data collected by the data collector and outputting detection results.

As shown in FIG. 1, the radiation source 10 is placed at one side of the carrier mechanism 30 carrying the liquid articles to be detected 20, while the detection and collection appliance 40 is placed at the other side of the carrier mechanism 30. The detection and collection appliance 40 comprises a detector and a data collector for acquiring the initial environmental information and the multi-angle projection data of the liquid articles 20. The data collector has a signal amplifying and formation circuit, which operates under (current) integration mode or pulses (counting) mode. The detection and collection appliance 40 has its data output cable connected with the computer data processor 60 to store the collected data into a database.

FIG. 2 shows a structure diagram of the computer data processor 60 of FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 2, the data collected by the data collector are stored in the memory 61. The configuration data and programs of the computer data processor are stored in the ROM (Read Only Memory) 62. The RAM (Random Access Memory) 63 is used for temporarily storing various data during the operating procedure of the processor 66. Besides, computer programs and a pre-created database are also stored in the memory 61 for data processing. The database stores various relevant parameters of known liquid articles, such as radiation absorption coefficient, density and etc, to compare with the radiation absorption coefficients of the liquid articles 20 computed by the processor 66. There is an internal bus 64 that connects the memory 61, the ROM 62, the RAM 63, the input device 65, the processor 66 and the display den isle 67 together.

After the user inputs operation commands through the input device 65 such as keyboards and mouse, the instruction code of the computer programs will instruct the processor 66 to perform predetermined data processing algorithm. After the processing results are obtained, they will be displayed on the display device 67 such as LCD, or redirected in the form of a hard copy.

FIG. 3 shows the flow chart of a detection method according to an embodiment of the invention. As shown in FIG. 3, at step S10, the liquid articles to be detected 20 is placed on the carrier mechanism 30. When an operator sends out the command of starting a scan, the scan controller 50 controls the radiation source 10 to emit radiations, and controls the carrier mechanism 30 to ascend and descend so as to enter the detection area constituted by the X-ray source 10 and the detector. At the same time, radiation beams are emitted from the radiation source 10 and transmit through the liquid articles to be detected 20. The scan controller 50 controls the detection and collection appliance 40 to receive the radiations transmitted through the liquid articles 20, to acquire initial environmental information of the liquid articles, such as the geometry boundary information, etc. The geometry boundary information can be obtained by the X-ray radiographic technique or by X-ray scan imaging technology. The X-ray scan imaging technology can adopt translating mode, rotating mode or spiral mode.

Besides, in the above procedures, the obtained initial environmental information of the liquid articles to be detected 20 contains the size of package, the material of package, the volume ratio of package to liquid articles, and so on. These information and radiation absorption coefficients of various liquid articles can be pre-classified by using neural network recognition algorithm to form a database. In the real detection procedure, the detection of the liquid articles 20 is implemented by comparing the measured features with the features in the database.

Thereafter, at step S20, the carrier mechanism 30 rotates under the control of the scan controller 50. When the carrier mechanism, 30 reaches the first angle, radiations will be emitted from the radiation source 10 to transmit through the liquid articles to be detected 20. The detection and to collection appliance 40 receives the transmitted radiations to obtain the projection data of the first angle, which is denoted as a 1×N dimensional vector g₁ and stored in the memory 61 of the computer data processor 60, wherein N is the number of the detection units of one row in the detector.

At step S20′, the carrier mechanism 30 continues rotating under the control of the scan controller 50. When the carrier mechanism 30 reaches the second angle, radiations will be emitted from the radiation source 10 to transmit through the liquid article 20. The detection and collection appliance 40 receives the transmitted radiations to obtain the projection data of the second angle, which is denoted as 1×N dimensional vector g₂ and stored in the memory 61 of the computer data processor 60.

The above steps are repeated in this manner. In step S20″, the carrier mechanism 30 continues rotating under the control of the scan controller 50. When the carrier mechanism 30 reaches the M^th angle, the projection data for M^th angle is obtained, which is denoted as 1×N dimensional vector g_M and stored in the memory 61 of the computer data processor 60. After the above scan procedure, the multi-angle projection data of the liquid articles 20 is obtained, which is denoted as an M×N dimensional vector g. Thereby, the multi-angle projection data of the liquid article to be detected 20 can be sequentially acquired for one slice.

Herein, in order to increase multi-angle projection data, the amount of angle projection can be increased during the scanning, or the detector is mounted with an offset of ¼ size of one detection unit of the detector.

Suppose that the linear attenuating coefficient (the absorption coefficient) of the liquid article to be detected 20 is expressed as an I-dimensional vector f, wherein I is the dimension of discretized pixels of the liquid article. Based on the interaction between X-ray and substance, according to the Bill's Law, we can get:

g ₁=exp(−H₁f)

g ₂=exp(−H₂f)

g _M=exp(−H_Mf)   (1)

Wherein the H₁, . . . , H_M each represents an N×I system matrix, whose element H_nj reflects the contribution of the discrete pixel j in the object image under the corresponding angle, to the signal collected by the n_th detector. H₁ . . . H_M each is a single sparse matrix, which is determined by practical design of the scanning system. For example, these matrices can be determined by pre-computing and then being stored in the memory 61, or through a real time computation according to the temporal system parameters. Thus, the linear attenuating coefficient information of the liquid articles can be obtained through the inverse operation with regard to the formula (1).

The inverse operation is an inverse process of normal operation. The process of normal operation is that the original signal emitted by radiation source attenuates when transmitting through the liquid articles 20 and the detector receives the attenuated radiation signal. Accordingly, an inverse operation is to compute the information of radiation attenuation by the liquid articles on the basis of the signal received by the detector.

However, during the detection procedure of liquid articles, because the inverse operation is an ill-conditioned problem, other information needs to be incorporated, e.g. the geometry boundary information of the liquid articles to be detected 20, which is obtained at the former step S10, so as to improve the validity and stability of the solution.

At step S30, the boundary condition and uniformity condition for the inverse operation are set on the basis of the initial environmental information obtained in step S10, which contains the geometry boundary information of the liquid article 20. The space shape of the liquid articles can be expressed as a bounded function. The geometry boundary information of the liquid articles 20 can be determined by the above X-ray radiographic technology or X-ray scan imaging technology, thereby the valid active region Ω can be defined, which is f_i=0, for i∉Ω. The introduction of the boundary condition can speed up the solution, and to some extent ameliorate its ill-condition. Secondly, as the target object of the detection system is the liquid part, the scanned object can be divided into two parts, i.e. the liquid region Ω₁ and the non-liquid region Ω_n. For the uniformity of the liquid part, f_i=smooth function, for iεΩ₁, will be lo obtained. The smooth function is characterized by that both the whole variance in the liquid region Ω₁ and the local fluctuation in the non-liquid region Ω_n are limited,. The use of the liquid articles uniformity greatly optimizes the extraction of the liquid article information, and improves the robustness of the system.

It is to be noted that the liquid articles having uniformity denotes those solutions, suspending liquids or emulsions that absorb the radiations uniformly. For example, in the above sense, the milk and the porridge etc are also liquid articles of uniformity, namely, the uniformity of these liquid articles will be exhibited when they absorb the radiation.

Therefore, at step S40, with the geometry boundary condition of the liquid articles 20 being the boundary condition and the uniformity of the liquid articles being the condition of convergence, using the above formula (1), the computer data processor 60 computes to get the radiation absorption coefficient of the liquid article 20. The valid radiation absorption coefficient of the liquid articles then can be worked out on the basis of the obtained statistical characteristics of the pixels within the region Ω₁.

Thereafter, at step S50, the computer data processor 60 outputs the relevant information of the liquid article to be detected 20, by comparing the computed radiation absorption coefficient with those of the known liquids in the database. For example, the radiation absorption coefficient of alcohol is −280, if the detected result for an unknown liquid article falls into the range of −270 to −290, this unknown liquid article in all probability is alcohol. Afterwards, the identification information of the detected liquid article will be shown on the display device 67 or directly printed out.

At the above step S40, the Bayesian method can be adopted to compute the radiation absorption coefficient of the liquid article 20 with the geometry boundary information and the uniformity as conditions. Also the non-statistical method can be adopted, wherein first solve the above formula (1) to obtain a preliminary radiation absorption coefficient, then after optimizing using the boundary condition and uniformity, estimate the linear attenuation coefficient of the liquid article 20 on the basis of distribution of f_i, for i εΩ₁, to improve the vialidity and the stability of the computation. The computation of the radiation absorption coefficient with the Bayesian method and the non-statistical method will be described below as examples.

[An example of computation of the linear absorption coefficient of liquid article with the Bayesian method]

1. Determine the target function:

Φ(f)=Φ₁(g;f)+λP(f)   (2)

Wherein Φ₁(g;f) is a likelihood function determined by the noise characteristics of the collected data, P(f) is the metric of the uniformity for f₁εΩ₁, e.g. P(f)=−variance(f)|_rεΩ, λ is a regulation parameter preset empirically;

2. Solve {circumflex over (f)} arg max[Φ(f)] using the numerical optimization method. During the process of solution, keep f_i=0, for i∉Ω;

3. Calculate the probability distribution p(μ_liquid) of fεΩ₁ to get the linear absorption coefficient of the liquid article, e.g.

μ_liquid=mean(f)|_fεΩ1, or μ_liquid=arg max(p(f))|_fεΩ1.

[An example of computation of the linear absorption coefficient of liquid article with the non-statistic method]

1. Acquire a preliminary estimate of the radiation absorption coefficient f by an analytic method, e.g. filter-back-projection reconstructing method or ART method;

2. Compute the uniformity of f_iεΩ₁

a) If the preset uniformity demand is satisfied, say, the local variance is lower than a certain threshold, then acquire the absorption coefficient of the liquid article on the basis of the statistical characteristics of fεΩ₁ such as μ_liquid=mean(f)|_fεΩ1.

b) If the uniformity demand is not satisfied, then conduct a boundary condition processing and a smoothing processing with regard to the radiation absorption coefficient f to acquire f′. Compare the orthographic projection of the processed f′ with the collected data g, analyze the difference between again to reconstruct and modify f, and then return step 2.

During the implementation of the non-statistical method, the operational speed and precision can be adjusted by setting different uniformity demands. In some extreme cases, the absorption coefficient of liquid article can be obtained just by one step, without iteration.

Besides, at the above step S10, if the liquid article 20 is of a sandwiched structure or layered e.g. it has two layers. The geometry boundary information of these two layers can be obtained using the above method, respectively, then conduct the same subsequent procedures with regard to the liquid article of the respective layers, and finally output the identification information of the two types of liquid articles, which serves as the ultimate identification information of the detected liquid article 20.

For example, in the case of a two-layer liquid article, the liquid article region comprises the first liquid article region Ω_1A and the second liquid article region Ω_1B. The linear attenuation coefficient of the first liquid article region Ω_1A is denoted as f_A, the linear attenuation coefficient of the second liquid article region Ω_1B is denoted as f_B. Then f_A=smooth function 1, for AεΩ_1A, f_B=smooth function 2, for BεΩ_1B.

Thus, the above-described step S10˜S50 are conducted with regard to the first liquid article region Ω_1A and the second liquid article region Ω_1B, respectively As mentioned above, based on the information such as the i of package, the material of package, the size ratio of the package to the liquid article, making use of the recognition algorithms such as the ANM (Artificial Neural Network), SVM (Support Vector Machine), BNN (Bayesian Neural Network), a classification table for the known various liquid articles can be established and stored into a database. As stated above, at steps S10 and S40, after acquiring the initial environmental information as well as the radiation absorption coefficient of the liquid article 20, the classification of the liquid article 20 in the database can hence be determined with the same neural network recognition algorithm, thereby the identification information of the liquid article 20 can be obtained.

In this embodiment of the invention, the scanning is implemented by rotating the detected liquid article 20. By means of scanning, both the volume and the cost of the device are reduced. However, another manner of scanning, that the detected liquid article 20 stays still while the radiation source 10 with the detection and collection appliance 40 rotates, can also be adopted.

Besides, the radiation source 10 may comprise one or more X-ray machines, as well as one or more isotope sources, and the radiation energy of the X-ray machines is adjustable. In the case that the radiation source 10 comprises a plurality of X-ray machines or isotope sources, there may be the same number of detectors as the X-ray machines or isotope sources, and these X-ray machines or isotope sources are set correspondingly. Herein, the detectors may be gas collectors, liquid detectors, solid detectors or semiconductor detectors, and may have an energy switching function. Besides, the detectors can work under the mode of one-dimensional array or two-dimensional arrays, i.e. the line array detector or the area array detector.

The computation procedure of the radiation absorption coefficient and the acquiring procedure of the identification information of the detected liquid article 20 are described above in the form that the computer data processor 60 runs the programs containing the predetermined data processing algorithm. However, the computer data processor 60 may be embodied in other forms. FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of the computer data processor 60 of the inspection device of FIG. 1.

As shown in FIG. 4, as another example of the computer data processor, this computer data processor 60′ comprises the following: a data memory 71, which stores the original environment information and the multi-angle projection data and etc, such as the system matrices H₁, . . . , H_M to describe the system property; the database 74, which stores the absorption coefficients of various liquid articles or other characteristic information, as well as a database of the classification table of various liquid articles to be used for the comparison of the checking procedure; an absorption coefficient calculation unit 72, which calculates the radiation absorption coefficient of the detected liquid article 20 based on formula (1), under the condition of uniformity of the liquid article, on the basis of the initial environmental information stored in the data memory 71 such as the geometry boundary information of liquid article, and the multi-angle projection data; a comparison unit 73, which compares the radiation coefficient of the liquid article 20 computed by the absorption coefficient computing unit 72 with those stored beforehand to determine the useful identification information of the liquid article 20; a output unit 75 such as a display or other output device, for presenting the identification information acquired by the comparison unit 73 to the operator.

Although exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been described hereinabove, it should be clear to those skilled in the field that any variations and/or modifications of the basic inventive concepts will still fall within the scope of the present invention, as defined in the appended claims.

Claims

1. A method for security-inspection of liquid articles with radiations comprising the steps of: acquiring initial environmental information;emitting radiation beams to transmit through the liquid articles;receiving the radiation beams transmitted through the liquid articles to form multi-angle projection data;computing a radiation absorption coefficient of the liquid articles by the inverse operation of the multi-angle projection data, based on the initial environmental information and the uniformity of the liquid articles;comparing the radiation absorption coefficient with the preset data to get the relevant information of the liquid articles to be detected.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the original environment information comprises geometry boundary information of the liquid articles to be detected.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the geometry boundary information is obtained by the radiographic technology or the scan imaging technology.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the liquid articles to be detected exhibit uniformity with regard to radiations.

5. A device for security-inspection of liquid articles with radiations comprising: a radiation source for emitting radiation beams;a carrier mechanism for carrying the liquid articles so as to have the radiation beams transmit through;a detection and collection appliance for acquiring original environment information and multi-angle projection data of the liquid articles to be detected; anda computer data processor, whereinthe computer data processor comprises:means for computing radiation absorption coefficient of the liquid articles to be detected by inverse operation of the multi-angle projection data, wherein the original environment information and the uniformity of the liquid articles being limiting conditions; andmeans for comparing the radiation absorption coefficients with the preset data to get the relevant parameters of the liquid articles to be detected.

6. The device of claim 5, wherein the radiation source is an X-ray machine or an isotope source.

7. The device of claim 6, wherein the radiation source is of one or more.

8. The device of claim 6, wherein the energy of the radiation source is adjustable.

9. The device of claim 5, wherein the detection and collection appliance is integrally formed of a detector and a data collector.

10. The device of claim 9, wherein the detector is a solid detector, a liquid detector, a gas detector or a semiconductor detector.

11. The device of claim 9, wherein the detector is of one or more.

12. The device of claim 9, wherein the detector is in the form of one-dimensional array or two-dimensional array.

13. The device of claim 9, wherein the detector has an energy switching function.

14. The device of claim 9, wherein the detector operates under integration mode or pulses mode.

15. The device of claim 9, wherein the multi-angle projection data is obtained by rotating the liquid articles to be detected or rotating the radiation source and the detection and collection appliance.

16. The device of claim 9, wherein the multi-angle projection data is obtained by increasing the amount of projection angles or mounting the detector with an offset of ¼ size of a detector unit.

17. The device of claim 5, wherein the computer data processor conducts the comparison by adopting predetermined identification algorithm.

18. The device of claim 5, wherein the coordination of the radiation source, the detection and collection means, the carrier mechanism the computer data processor is controlled by a scan controller.