US 12,085,689 B2
Muon tomography system, apparatus, and method for tunnel detection
Douglas William Schouten, Surrey (CA)
Assigned to IDEON TECHNOLOGIES INC., Richmond (CA)
Appl. No. 17/599,915
Filed by IDEON TECHNOLOGIES INC., Richmond (CA)
PCT Filed Apr. 3, 2020, PCT No. PCT/CA2020/050454
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Sep. 29, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/198885, PCT Pub. Date Oct. 8, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/829,008, filed on Apr. 3, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0196874 A1, Jun. 23, 2022
Int. Cl. G01N 9/24 (2006.01); G01V 5/04 (2006.01)
CPC G01V 5/04 (2013.01) [G01N 9/24 (2013.01); G01N 2223/205 (2013.01)] 12 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system for passively monitoring territory proximate to or at restrictive boundaries, the system comprising a plurality of muon sensors, a data network in communication with each muon sensor, a power network in electrical communication with each muon sensor, and a data analysis unit, the data analysis unit in communication with each muon sensor via the data network, the data analysis unit comprising a memory and a processor, the memory configured to instruct the processor to analyse data from the plurality of muon detectors to identify and locate an elongated feature,
wherein the memory is further configured to instruct the processor to:
analyze a data set from at least two muon sensors of the plurality of muon sensors to determine if the elongated feature is a tunnel;
create a three-dimensional map of the tunnel; and,
identify a location of the tunnel;
wherein each muon sensor includes at least two arrays, each array comprising elongated scintillator bars in a first plane and elongated scintillator bars in a second plane, the elongated scintillator bars in the first plane orthogonal to the elongated scintillator bars in the second plane,
wherein each scintillator bar is individually coupled to a photodetector at a first end and individually coupled to a photodetector at a second end.