What's So Special about Vidico's Smart ICU?

What’s So Special about Vidisco’s Smart ICU?

An interview with Mr. Lior Pick, Vidisco Executive Vice President Responsible for Company R&D

By Rachel Lieberman

The ICU – or the Imager Control Unit – plays a crucial role in the performance of the Vidisco digital radiography flat panel X-ray systems. Lior Pick, Vidisco Executive Vice President who is responsible for R&D, refers to the company’s proprietary ICU as the “heart of all of Vidisco’s cutting-edge Digital Industrial Radiography XPro Series.”
What’s so special about Vidisco’s ICU (XPro Series)? Lior Pick explains that Vidisco’s ICU is a small, lightweight device that fulfills multiple advanced functions, one of which is power management: “ICU power management is one of the key functions of the device. The ICU switches automatically from external power (such as a DC/AC vehicle inverter or socket) to internal battery use. With the aim of conserving power, when the system is connected to external power, the battery is automatically charged parallel to operation.  
The ICU powers the system panel in addition to internal/external components and accessories. It can power 3 types of a-Si panels (RayzorXPro, FlashXPro and BlazeXPro); two types of built-in wireless (WXR or WiFi X);and external accessories such asXR-DE and Smart X 150.
 
Aside from its outstanding power management capabilities, the smart ICU also offers multiple operation modes: The fully wired mode - in which the X-ray source and system are both connected by cable; the semi-wireless mode - using one of two available built-in wireless options (WXRorWiFi X);and finally full wireless mode - in which both X-ray source and laptop are connected wirelessly.  Built-in, ICU wireless facilitates 300 meters line of sight wireless communication with the laptop (WiFi X), and allows for coded and safe wireless communication with the Golden X-ray source (with WXR).
Here another completely unique trait to Vidisco’s Smart ICU comes to light: It is capable not only of synchronizing and controlling the panel and X-ray but also of maintaining the image produced by the panel in the ICU’s built-in memory. Lior Pick elaborates: “It’s a known fact that there is often interference during wireless communications. Comparable systems end up losing parts of images, requiring repeated X-ray reshoots to acquire the entire image. Vidisco’s ICU (XPro Series) functions differently. ‘Lost packets’ can easily be re-sent from the ICU to the computer; complete image transfer is achieved quickly, saving time and eliminating the need for repeated shoots.”
Plug and Play is an additional ICU asset: The flat DDA imagers are interchangeable with the CCD line of product, so that no less than 6 interchangeable detectors can be utilized with the same system (3 CCD and 3 a-Si flat panels)!
Flexibility is one of the Smart ICU’s most prominent features, explains Lior Pick. The Smart ICU can operate a series of X-ray sources including pulsed X-ray sources (Golden XR-150, XR-200, XRS-3, XRS-4) and synchronize industrial constant potential sources including Balteau Spot and Balteau Graph series, Yxlon’s Smart (MGC4X, Y.xpo), GE (Seifert) - Eresco control panels, Medex - GemX sources and Hamamatsu Microfocus L8121-03, ICM, and other sources which work on the same communication protocol. For some industrial constant potential sources, the smart ICU can also control and adjust energy levels (kV and mA) using the source communication channel (RS-232), through the Vidisco software.
Lior Pick adds: “By controlling and synchronizing the X-ray sources we achieve significant reduction of the dose use, thereby improving safety and enhancing performance.”
The Vidisco XPro series’ proprietary ICU transforms the company’s industrial Digital Radiography systems into truly cutting-edge NDT X-ray tools. With power management, built-in wireless, and flexible operation of many detectors and synchronized X-ray sources, Vidisco offers a comprehensive portable X-ray solution for NDT. 

Learn more about Vidisco′s ICU

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