Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is offering a partnership opportunity to further develop and deploy its large area imager (LAI) technology.
This technology addresses applications associated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense, and Department of Energy.
One of the major challenges faced by DHS is the remote detection of radioactive materials that could be used in a nuclear or radiological weapon of mass destruction.
Traditional technologies rely on large detectors and proximity imaging (i.e., associating the source location with the location at which count rates are highest). Such techniques are susceptible to local variations in background count rates, and thus have high false-alarm rates or low sensitivity.
The LAI technology uses a one-dimensional, codedaperture imaging system to overcome this difficulty. The imaging allows background variations associated with distributed sources (e.g., building, geology, etc.) to be ignored, while allowing compact sources to be localized. In fact, such a source is located in two dimensions (location along direction of travel and range from imager) using parallax information in conjunction with the image processing. LLNL designed and tested a proof-of-principle Livermore's Large Area Imager prototype that has been used to establish the potential for this technology. A second prototype is being constructed to demonstrate the ability to detect sources at long ranges on both sides of a vehicle with a single detector array.
Both prototypes use arrays of alkali-halide scintillation detectors behind a coded array of lead elements, providing a unique shadow pattern on the detectors for each possible source location.
LLNL is seeking industrial partners with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. All licensing activities are conducted under policies relating to the strict nondisclosure of company proprietary information.
More info: Catherine Elizondo, 925-422-0801, elizondo1@llnl.gov
