A detection system for detecting fluorescence lifetime includes an excitation light source configured for repeatedly generating pulsed excitation light, and a detector. The detector has a single-photon detection circuit; a pulse-inhibit circuit for rejecting detected photons that occur outside each one of a series of measurement time windows, each subsequent measurement time window starting after a subsequent excitation light pulse has stopped, and stopping before a next excitation light pulse is generated, each measurement time window having a measurement window period; and a switched-capacitor circuit having an input terminal for receiving a voltage ramp signal that is restarted with each new measurement window period. The switched-capacitor circuit is configured for repetitively computing an average voltage. The switched-capacitor circuit has a node for outputting the computed average voltage as a measure of the fluorescence lifetime.

A threat detection system having a reconfigurable reflect-array and compressive sensing unit to effectively detect objects that are a threat is presented. A statistical library, having a wide range of threat and non-threat examples and capable of incorporating new examples while being used, is utilized by several optimization algorithms to calculate an optimal illumination pattern for compressive sensing detection. The reflect-array is configured to produce the optimal illumination pattern via a plurality of reflect-array elements. In this way, a plurality of data may be parallel processed, thereby increasing the detection speed and reducing cost.

Provided are an apparatus and method for measuring contamination of a filter. The filter contamination measuring apparatus includes a light-emitting unit which provides light having, a predetermined wavelength to a filter adsorbs foreign materials, a light-receiving unit which receives light reflected by the filter and convert reflected light information into a digital code to output, and a contamination calculating unit which processes the digital code provided by the light-receiving unit and calculates a degree of contamination of the filter, wherein the contamination calculating unit calculates a degree, in which a wavelength of the light reflected by the filter is shifted from the predetermined wavelength, compares intensity of light provided by the light-emitting unit with intensity of the light reflected by the filter, and calculates the degree of contamination of the filter.

A measurement system may direct an illumination beam including at least one of a first frequency comb or a second frequency comb to a sample, and generate a sequence of images of the sample based on the first frequency comb and the second frequency comb. The system may include one or more coding optical elements to encode data associated with one or more transfer matrix elements into the sequence of images of the sample. The system may further generate a transfer matrix dataset including measurements of at least one of the one or more transfer matrix elements associated with the sample based on at least one of spectral, spatial, or temporal analysis of the sequence of images, and generate one or more measurements of the sample based on the transfer matrix dataset.

In a heating appliance comprising a substrate for receiving an item of cookware, a method of measuring reflectivity comprises emitting a time-varying electromagnetic signal from a first side of the substrate, a portion of the time-varying electromagnetic signal propagating through the substrate. Electromagnetic radiation is then received at the first side of the substrate, the received electromagnetic radiation comprising a background ambient component received and a component reflected by the substrate. A gain factor is applied to translate the received electromagnetic radiation to a receive electrical signal. An offset signal component is then identified from the receive electrical signal, the offset signal component arising from the background ambient component of the received electromagnetic radiation. The gain factor from the offset signal component is then estimated using a characterisation of the offset signal component, and the reflectivity is calculated using the receive electrical signal and the estimated gain factor.

Apparatus for analyzing images includes a memory and a processor, and the processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction stored in the memory, detect an image coordinate of a defect position in a defect reaction image acquired by imaging a semiconductor device, generate a golden image of the semiconductor device based on a plurality of pattern images acquired by imaging a plurality of semiconductor devices, generate a design layout image corresponding to the pattern image based on a design layout of the plurality of semiconductor devices, generate relationship information between a pattern image and the design layout image based on the pattern image, the golden image, and the design layout image, and extract a design layout image coordinate corresponding to the defect position from the design layout image using the image coordinate of the defect position in the defect reaction image and the generated relationship information.

A dust sensor includes a photo detector configured to detect light scattered from dust; and a signal processing circuit having a high-pass filter receiving an electric signal generated from output of the photo detector. The signal processing circuit generates a dust detection signal using a signal provided to the high-pass filter as well as a signal output from the high-pass filter.