METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ELECTRONIC INSPECTION OF BAGGAGE AND CARGO

• US 20100046704A1
• Filed: 08/25/2008
• Published: 02/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telesecurity Sciences, Inc. (Homeland Resources Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Telesecurity Sciences, Inc. (Homeland Resources Ltd.)
• Inventors: Song, Samuel Moon-Ho, Boyd, Douglas Perry
• Granted Patent: US 8,600,149 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 378/57
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 23/04 and forming images of the material

Abstract

A method and system of electronically inspecting baggage comprises generating scan data representative of a piece of baggage. At least one of a contour and a surface is extracted from the scan data, and the at least one of a contour and a surface is representative of an object within the baggage. An object database comprises data representative of shapes of known objects, and the at least one of a contour and surface is compared to the object database to identify an object match which is presented.

Claims

1. A method of electronically inspecting baggage, comprising:

generating scan data representative of a piece of baggage;

extracting at least one of contour and surface information from the scan data, the at least one of contour and surface information representative of an object within the baggage;

comparing the at least one of contour and surface information to an object database to identify an object match, the object database comprising shape information representative of shapes of known objects; and

presenting the object match.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracting further comprises computing coefficients of basis functions that are rotationally invariant based on the at least one of contour and surface information, the coefficients being used in the comparing.

3. The method of claim 1, the shape information in the object database further comprising spherical harmonic coefficients based on at least one of contours and surfaces corresponding to the shapes of the known objects, the spherical harmonic coefficients being used in the comparing.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the scan data is generated by a scanner having at least one source and producing at least two views, the at least two views being used to extract the at least one of contour and surface information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the scan data is 2-D slices and the extracting further comprises extracting the at least one of contour and surface information surfaces based on a subset of the 2-D slices.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the scan data is generated by a CT scanner having a moving source and detector, the CT scanner producing a volume from which the at least one of contour and surface information is extracted.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the scan data is generated by an x-ray scanner having a stationary source and detector, the x-ray scanner producing at least one view from which the at least one of contour and surface information is extracted.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying at least one of a threat level and a sensitivity; and

adjusting the at least one of a threat level and sensitivity to increase or decrease an amount of the object matches.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a region of interest with a user interface, the region of interest comprising a subset of the scan data, the extracting being based on the region of interest.

10. The method of claim 1, where extracting at least one of contour and surface information is performed with a partially available or truncated data that only represents a portion of the object.

11. A system for electronically inspecting baggage, comprising:

a database to store scan data acquired while scanning a piece of baggage;

an object database to store shape information corresponding to known objects;

a workstation for comparing the scan data to the shape information to determine if an object match is detected; and

a display for displaying information related to the object match.

12. The system according to claim 11, further comprising a scanner configured to scan the baggage, the scanner comprising at least one of a computed tomography (CT) scanner, a cine computed tomography scanner, a helical CT scanner, a four-dimensional (4D) cine computed tomography scanner, an electronic beam scanner, a DI scanner, an X-ray scanner, a dual-energy x-ray scanner, and a dual-energy CT scanner.

13. The system according to claim 11, further comprising an operator input for identifying a portion of the scan data to be compared to the shape information within the object database.

14. The system according to claim 11, wherein the workstation segments the scan data to identify 3-D objects, the workstation extracting at least one of surface and contour information based on the 3-D objects, the workstation converting the surface and contour information to spherical harmonic coefficients.

15. The system according to claim 11, wherein the object database comprises spherical harmonic coefficients representative of at least one of contours and surfaces that correspond to the known objects.

16. The system according to claim 11, wherein the at least one of contour and surface information related to the object match comprises at least one of an image, a description, a threat indicator, and an indication of confidence associated with the object match.

17. The system according to claim 11, wherein the object database comprises at least one of a commercially available database and images generated using a scanner, the object database being updateable by one of removing objects and adding additional objects.

18. A computer readable medium storing an application for use to inspect baggage, where scan data has been generated that is representative of a piece of baggage, the scan data being stored at a first memory, the application comprising instructions configured to direct a computer to:

obtain the scan data from the first memory;

extract at least one of contour and surface information from the scan data, the at least one of contour and surface information representative of an object within the baggage;

compare the at least one of contour and surface information to an object database to identify an object match; and

present the object match on a display.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the object database comprises shape information representative of shapes of known objects, the shape information being stored based on spherical harmonic coefficients.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the instructions are further configured to convert the at least one of the contour and surface information to spherical harmonic coefficients.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the instructions are further configured to receive an input from a user identifying a region of interest within the scan data, the extracting operating on the scan data within the region of interest.