公开(公告)号：US10895540B1

公开(公告)日：2021-01-19

申请号：US16406300

申请日：2019-05-08

申请人： United States of America as represented by the Administrator of NASA

发明人： Rajiv Gupta ,  Wolfgang Krull ,  Jake Hecla ,  Avilash Cramer ,  Steven Kenyon ,  Zaven Arzoumanian ,  Keith Gendreau

IPC分类号： G01N23/046 ,  G06T11/00 ,  G01T1/29 ,  A61B6/00 ,  A61B6/02 ,  A61B6/03

摘要： The present invention relates to a novel, non-rotating tomographic imaging system, including a multi-source x-ray imaging module which includes multiple x-ray sources within a vacuum manifold, each equipped with a non-thermionic cathode which can reduce image scan time (and hence, motion artifacts), or delivered radiation dose, through under-sampled acquisition sequences, and without adding additional sources. The non-thermionic nature of the cathode enables rapid on/off switching of x-rays without concern as to the thermal mass or the thermal time-constant of the cathode. The modules can be flexibly interconnected to each other to allow configuration as part of a distributed ring of sources, or in other x-ray imaging geometries. Modularity provides the present invention an advantage in making it easier to debug and repair a distributed-source imaging system, such as a computed tomographic (CT) system.