Dielectric personnel scanning

• US 6,927,691 B2
• Filed: 11/25/2002
• Issued: 08/09/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: EMIT Technologies LLC
• Original Assignee: Spatial Dynamics, Ltd.
• Inventors: Yukl, Tex
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu, Daniel
• Assistant Examiner(s): Huang, Sihong
• Application Number:
  US10/304,388
• Publication Number:
  US 20030178034A1
• Time in Patent Office: 988 Days
• Field of Search: 340/568.1, 340/540, 340/573.1, 340/691.6, 342/22, 250/358.1, 250/393, 128/922, 128/920, 128/923
• US Class Current: 340/568.1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/887 for detection of concealed objects, e.g. contraband or weapons
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 8/005 operating with millimetre waves, e.g. measuring the black losey radiation

Abstract

A system and method for the dielectric scanning of a human subject to detect anomalies relative to expected normal physiology as an indication, among other things, of the possible presence of a weapon, contraband, or of a confirmed difference in personal identity. Persons expeditiously can enter a double-open-sided, ninety-degree counter-rotative scanning zone in the system, alternating from two orthogonally positional entry lines. Scanning occurs in two orthogonal phases of non-relative-motion interrogative microwave illumination to detect sequential, opposite-side-quadrant, dielectric physiologic anatomical signatures which are assessed by computer comparing them to pre-established physiologic-signature tables. Persons entering the scanning zone, leave along a quadrature-related exit path.

Claims

1. A dielectric method for scanning a human subject comprising

providing an interrogation region within which the subject is stationed during scanning,

for the purpose of acquiring scanning data, illuminating the subject within the interrogation region with microwave signal energy, and monitoring the dielectric response therefrom, utilizing an array of combined, co-axial transmitter/receiver antennae, and performing said illuminating in a condition without there being any relative lateral motion between the antennae array and the subject,

comparing the dielectric response scanning data with baseline physiological response data stored in a memory to produce data representative of any difference therebetween, and

evaluating such produced data by the use of defined scanning criteria.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the illuminating step is performed in such a manner that transmitted microwave energy penetrates the body of a subject by a distance from the surface which is substantially 2.5-wavelengths of the illuminating signal frequency, as such wavelengths are determined in accordance with the nominal dielectric constant of the subject'"'"'s physiology in the region where that illuminating takes place.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the 2.5-wavelength penetration mentioned is such that the associated penetration crosses an internal boundary defined by physiology within the subject which has at least two, different material dielectric characteristics.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the illuminating frequency is substantially 5.5-Gigaherz.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the interrogation region is laterally defined by two, upright, spaced, confrontingly opposing arrays of dielectric devices, which arrays recurrently counter-rotate through a substantially ninety-degree angle during each successive subject-scanning procedure, with the space between the arrays generally defining two upright, spaced, confrontingly opposing open subject entrances to the region which lies between the arrays, and wherein successive subjects to be scanned are introduced to the interrogation region through these entrances from generally orthogonally related lines which extend from the interrogation region, with successively scanned subjects entering and exiting the interrogation region alternately from these two lines and along two right-angle paths whose corners lie in the space between the arrays.

6. A dielectric system for scanning a human subject comprising

an interrogation region within which a subject is stationed during scanning,

dielectric structure disposed in a non-lateral relative-motion condition with respect to such a subject for illuminating the subject within said interrogation region with microwave energy thus to acquire scanning data, and to monitor the dielectric response scanning data therefrom, said dielectric structure including, at least in part, an array of combined, coaxial transmitter/receiver antennae,

comparison structure operatively connected to said transmitter/receiver antennae operable to compare the dielectric response scanning data with baseline physiological response data stored in a memory, and to produce data which is representative of any difference therebetween, and

evaluation structure operatively connected to said comparison structure for evaluating such produced data by the use of defined scanning criteria.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein said transmission/reception antennae have respective operational polarities, and are arranged in arrays in a substantially orthogonal, row-and-column manner, and wherein next-adjacent antennae have operational polarities which is generally orthogonal relative to that one another.

8. A microwave system for the two-position, non-relative-motion scanning of the physiology of a human subject to detect defined dielectric abnormalities therein comprising

a pair of spaced, confronting, upright panels carrying microwave transmitter/receiver structure and collectively defining (a) opposite sides of an upright screening zone which has an upright generally central elongate axis, and (b) a panel-orientation-determined path for the transit of a subject to be scanned into and out of said zone between said panels,

structure mounting said panels for cyclic, quadrature counter-rotation as a unit about said axis, back and forth between two, stationary, generally orthogonally related screening positions,

each screening of a human subject involving a single quadrature rotation of the panel from one to the other of said two positions, with each such screening thus creating an orthogonal, overall transit path for a subject entering and then later leaving said zone, with the paths for two successive screened subjects having an orthogonal relationship relative to one another, and

microwave energizing and detecting structures operatively connected to said panels, and operable under circumstances with the panels stationed at rest in each of said two positions to operate the transmitter/receiver structure therein.