Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus to recover a dead pixel in digital imaging systems

US7453066B2 · kind B2 · utility

0Cited by
6References
17Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 5, 2004
Grant dateNov 18, 2008
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 8, 2025

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01T1/1647
  • WIPO fieldEnvironmental technology
  • WIPO sectorChemistry

Abstract

Gamma radiation events are received individually at elements of a detector array (18) at least one of the elements (P0) being defective. Each detector element converts incident radiation into a radiation event signal which is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter (42) into a coordinate position (x,y) on the detector array and energy (z). An event generator (48) generates radiation event signals for each defective element based on radiation events received at contributing elements, e.g., nearest neighbor elements (P1-P8). In a preferred embodiment, the contribution from each of the contributing elements is randomized by passing a token (56) among positions of a table (54) corresponding to each of the contributing elements. Each time a radiation event is received at the contributing element whose corresponding table position holds the token, that event also generates an event signal for the defective element and the token is passed (58). The energy of the generated event for the defective detector element is randomized (62), such as by replacing the least significant bits with random numbers.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.