Portal Monitoring
First Claim
1. A portal monitoring system, comprising:
- a first length of optical fibre mechanically coupled to a material whose physical characteristics vary dependent on an ambient magnetic field, the optical fibre being arranged in the vicinity of a portal;
a fibre optic interrogator adapted to provide distributed sensing on the optical fibre to provide measurement data from a plurality of sensing portions of said fibre at each of a plurality of times; and
a data analyser adapted to process said measurement data to detect signals characteristic of a disturbance in the magnetic field along the optical fibre.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention relates to a portal monitoring system that uses distributed sensing to detect metallic objects passing through the portal. The system comprises a length of fibre optic (102) comprising an optical fibre (106) mechanically coupled to a material (108) whose physical characteristics vary dependent on the applied magnetic field. The fibre optic (102) is arranged in the vicinity of a portal (200) and a fibre optic interrogator (104) is adapted to provide distributed sensing on the optical fibre to provide measurement data from a plurality of contiguous portions of said optical fibre at each of a plurality of times. A data analyser processes the measurement data to detect signals characteristic of a disturbance in the magnetic field along the optical fibre. The system of the present invention is able to monitor multiple people passing though a portal at the same time and provide an indication of the location of metallic objects within the portal.
104 Citations
37 Claims
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1. A portal monitoring system, comprising:
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a first length of optical fibre mechanically coupled to a material whose physical characteristics vary dependent on an ambient magnetic field, the optical fibre being arranged in the vicinity of a portal; a fibre optic interrogator adapted to provide distributed sensing on the optical fibre to provide measurement data from a plurality of sensing portions of said fibre at each of a plurality of times; and a data analyser adapted to process said measurement data to detect signals characteristic of a disturbance in the magnetic field along the optical fibre. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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9. (canceled)
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13. (canceled)
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24. (canceled)
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25. A method of portal monitoring, the method comprising:
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interrogating an optical fibre, which is mechanically coupled to a material whose physical characteristics vary dependent on the ambient magnetic field, with pulses of electromagnetic radiation to provide a distributed sensor having a plurality of sensing portions of optical fibre, said optical fibre being arranged around at least two sides of a portal, and analysing the signals from said sensing portions of optical fibre to detect signals characteristic of a disturbance in the magnetic field in the portal. - View Dependent Claims (26, 31, 32, 34, 36)
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27-30. -30. (canceled)
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33. (canceled)
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35. (canceled)
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37-39. -39. (canceled)
Specification