Ridgeline Engineering was asked to develop a relocatable, gamma imaging inspection system for customs enforcement and border control use. The user requires the ability to inspect two semi-trailers simultaneously. In addition, the system has to be easily transported in a small commercial trailer and simple and light enough such that two Operators could set up and begin inspections within 4 hours upon arrival on site.
We designed a system that uses dual Trolleys, running on parallel lightweight aluminum modular tracks. Each track builds out to 95 feet in length. One Trolley contains an attractively design environmental enclosure to house the gamma ray source. In addition to providing for motion, this Trolley controls the shuttering and collimation of the gamma source. Remote adjustment to the height and view angles is provided to the Operator to allow to refinement of the scan image or to concentrate on a point of interest.
The second Trolley carries a 20 ft tall detector imaging array. The array is modular and is assembled in the field using a self contained winch mechanism. Both Trolleys are servo controlled in order to maintain the precision synchronization required to get quality images. A three PLC network is used for communications and local I/O. The third PLC is located at an Operator's station, which provides system control and interfaces with an imaging PC.
