CMOS-Based Radiation Movie and Still Image Pickup System with a Phototimer Using Smart Pattern Recognition

摘要

Radiation imaging systems are used in biology, medicine, industry, high-energy physics, and et ceteras application. However, it has been highly difficult to realize a radiation digital image pickup device that is adapted to show a moving image with a high resolution if it is made to show reduced dimensions at low cost. CMOSs can advantageously be used for the photoelectric converters. CMOSs are adapted to show a moving image with a high resolution and, at the same time, can be made to show reduced dimensions at low cost. Therefore, we propose a CMOS-based radiation movie and still image pickup device. Next we propose a phototimer for the device. The radiation image pickup system includes a phototimer using pattern recognition for X-ray emission. The system is able to recognize a pattern image of interest by allowing radiation from an X-ray source to pass through a object. The phototimer signal can be obtained from the image recognition unit by non-destructive reading in the image sensing operation. The radiation image pickup system can easily and accurately perform optimal exposure. Finally the system could obtain a high-quality image without any deterioration in S/N characteristics.