Motion correction for passive radiation imaging of small vessels in ship-to-ship inspections

Journal Article · Sat Sep 05 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2015.08.040· OSTI ID:1242665

Ziock, Klaus -Peter ^[1]; Boehnen, Chris Bensing ^[1]; Ernst, Joseph M. ^[1]; Fabris, Lorenzo ^[1]; Hayward, Jason P. ^[2]; Karnowski, Thomas Paul ^[1]; Paquit, Vincent C. ^[1]; Patlolla, Dilip Reddy ^[1]; Trombino, David ^[3]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
3. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Passive radiation detection remains one of the most acceptable means of ascertaining the presence of illicit nuclear materials. In maritime applications it is most effective against small to moderately sized vessels, where attenuation in the target vessel is of less concern. Unfortunately, imaging methods that can remove source confusion, localize a source, and avoid other systematic detection issues cannot be easily applied in ship-to-ship inspections because relative motion of the vessels blurs the results over many pixels, significantly reducing system sensitivity. This is particularly true for the smaller watercraft, where passive inspections are most valuable. We have developed a combined gamma-ray, stereo visible-light imaging system that addresses this problem. Data from the stereo imager are used to track the relative location and orientation of the target vessel in the field of view of a coded-aperture gamma-ray imager. Using this information, short-exposure gamma-ray images are projected onto the target vessel using simple tomographic back-projection techniques, revealing the location of any sources within the target. Here,the complex autonomous tracking and image reconstruction system runs in real time on a 48-core workstation that deploys with the system.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1242665
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1359619
• Journal Information: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 805; ISSN 0168-9002
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
position-sensitive detector
coded-aperture
gamma-ray imager
nuclear imaging
machine vision
vessel tracking