Automatic Detection of Potential Threat Objects in X-ray Luggage Scan Images

• Published in: 2008 IEEE Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security pp. 504 - 509
• Main Authors: Nercessian, S., Panetta, K., Agaian, S.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-05-2008
• Subjects: Airports; Humans; Image databases; Image edge detection; Image segmentation; Object detection; Security; X-ray detection; X-ray detectors; X-ray imaging
• ISBN: 1424419778; 9781424419777
• DOI: 10.1109/THS.2008.4534504

The detection of threat objects using X-ray luggage scan images has become an important means of aviation security. Most airport screening is still based on the manual detection of potential threat objects by human experts. This paper presents a system for the automatic detection of potential threat objects in X-ray luggage scan images. Segmentation and edge-based feature vectors form the basis of the automatic detection system. The system is illustrated using handguns as the threat objects in question. The experimental results show that the system can effectively detect the handguns in X-ray luggage scan images with minimal amounts of false positives. Also, apart from the initial setup of the classification database, the algorithm is suitable for real-time applications.