XSpectra®: an Advanced Real-Time Food Contaminants Detector

An innovative X-ray inspection technology, named XSpectra®, has been developed with the aim to improve the current state of art in the field of real-time detection of contaminants in food products on production lines. The technology architecture is based on modules equipped with a 128 pixels CdTe array detector each read-out by full-custom FrontEnd ASICs. A full-custom Multi-Channel-Analyzer reconstructs the radiation spectrum, which is then processed by advanced Neural Network algorithms performing both image reconstruction and foreign bodies detection. The experimental characterization of XSpectra® has demonstrated the sensitivity of the fully operating system to photon energies down to about 10 keV at events rates up to several millions of photons per second. A line-width of 8.5 keV FWHM has been measured, at room temperature, on the 60 keV photo-peak of a synchrotron radiation in low-rate conditions. A spectral non-linearity error within ±0.5% has been obtained within the energy range 25 keV – 100 keV. The effective capability of XSpectra® to detect currently undetectable low-density contaminants inside real food products has also been proved.