Deriving evidence for an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium using multi-node differential event analysis.

Abstract

This invention is an apparatus for the detection of indeterminate objects of interest contained within an encompassing medium using event detection including but not limited to radiation event counts. Methods currently in use for this purpose rely on prior knowledge of the object's characteristics (size, age, orientation, etc.), as in the case of detecting possible nuclear devices being transported by a vehicle. Additionally, these methods rely on the use of heavy lead shielding to eliminate the effects of background and atmospheric radiation, which makes the apparatus difficult to move and limits the size of the measurable area. Such methods are highly impractical for use in field studies, where the specific characteristics of objects of interest are often unknown and difficult terrain makes the use of heavy, unwieldy equipment impossible.

This apparatus eliminates the need for both a complete understanding of an object's characteristics and the use of heavy shielding by relying on statistical analysis of measured events such as local gamma radiation counts to determine the probability of an object's presence. A plurality of independent event detecting nodes is first used to establish the baseline event activity such as background radiation (including environmental factors) in the field area, at a location determined unlikely to contain objects of interest due to geologic context or previous digging. Once the baseline radiation is established, the apparatus can then be moved to locations more likely to contain objects of interest. Each node then independently detects and quantifies the profile of event activity to derive evidence, when compared to the baseline, of the probability that an object of interest is within the medium. The calculated probabilities are then used to guide exploratory digging by indicating the likely direction and depth of an object of interest relative to the apparatus. By differentially measuring event activity such as background radiation with a plurality of event detecting nodes that can aggregate and groom results and incorporate them into the statistical analysis for in a specific area of interest, the need for event shielding techniques such as using heavy lead shielding is eliminated, making the resulting apparatus light and portable for easy use in the field. Additionally, it is unnecessary to know the specific characteristics of an object of interest, as the detected fluctuations of events such as gamma radiation are only meant to indicate the probability that any object is present within the medium. The versatility of the apparatus due to its size, multi-sensory node design, statistical capabilities, and compatibility with other computational devices and data storage makes it well suited to a variety of applications, including but not limited to the fields of paleontology and archaeology along with other fields of scientific inquiry or discovery.

Claims

1. An apparatus with the capability of deriving evidence of an indeterminate artifact or natural object, or objects, in an encompassing medium and communication of data and results comprising: a) one or more event detecting nodes, where each said node contains an event detection module such as but not limited to said event detection module having the needed sensor along with supportive analog and digital circuitry to detect events which may be emitted from said indeterminate objects such as but not limited to gamma radiation events of any energy frequency, gamma radiation at a specific energy frequency or range, and beta radiation at any energy frequency; b) said nodes each comprising a control module which establishes the parameters for how each said node will quantify sampling time duration such as but not limited to events-per-second, and the number of samples for a collection to be evaluated, such as but not limited to 180 said samples per said collection, and then records the results of the quantified events captured for each said sample and for each said collection; c) said nodes each comprising a baseline evaluation module which allows each said node to independently retain its own said collection and analysis on what comprises a baseline level of event activity occurring for baseline collections when no said object is within a targeted area; d) said nodes each comprising an evidence detection module which allows each said node to independently generate object detection collections for comparison to said baseline collections and to conduct quantifiable differential analysis regarding whether event activity occurring within any given said object detection collection indicates, based on differential analysis compared to said baseline collection, evidence of a said object of interest is within said specifically targeted area; e) said nodes each comprising a collections management module which allows each said node to retain said baseline collections and said object detection collections along with appropriate collection metadata about said collections which can be useful for differential analysis including but not limited to time, date, global position latitude and longitude, temperature, elevation, and other environmental conditions; f) said nodes each comprising a data quality module which allows each said node to evaluate the possibilities that said baseline collections and said object detection collections have gathered consistent data within their domains, including analysis techniques including but not limited to qq-plot analysis; g) an apparatus communications module capable of transmitting to the apparatus all said baseline collections, said object detection collections, and said node analytical results along with sending and receiving commands and parameters sent by the apparatus; whereby the apparatus has a plurality of said nodes all independently capable of detecting events and evaluating the evidential probabilities of an artifact or natural object of indeterminate qualities in an encompassing medium within range of the apparatus in said specific targeted area using curated said baseline and said object detection collections, and then reporting said collections and analytical results to the apparatus.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further enhanced with the capability of deriving evidence of said indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium and communication of data and results comprising one or more of the following additional modules: a) a node aggregator module that provides integration between said nodes and all other appropriate modules within the apparatus for common services such as but not limited to power, data transfer, and control commands; b) a power management module providing appropriate levels of power appropriate for the type of event detection that is occurring, along with power for all the digital and analog circuitry within said node and said apparatus, and also providing but not limited to power redundancy; c) an environmental module capable of delivering to all said nodes data as to what the specific environmental conditions are during usage including but not limited to global position latitude and longitude, time, and elevation for said apparatus while engaged in collection gathering; d) a node management module that issues commands to all said nodes regarding but not limited to said expected sampling time duration, number of said samples per said collection, and when to initiate the gathering of said collections; e) a data communications module which is capable of receiving data from said nodes including but not limited to all said samples gathered as part of said collections, along with said node's differential quantitative analysis of the evidential probability of a said indeterminate object being detected; f) a data storage module for storing all said node results across a time horizon including but not limited to all gathered said collections, and all analytical results gathered from said nodes; g) an internode analytics module providing capabilities including but not limited to aggregating node collections from co-located said nodes for usage but not limited to aggregated intra-node statistical analysis including but not limited to differential z-scores; h) said internode analytics module providing capabilities including but not limited to applying various covariant and multivariate statistical and machine learning algorithms across collections for said nodes with different event detection types or varying said collection metadata values; i) an external control module providing communications abilities to an external device such as but not limited to a smartphone or tablet, using network protocols such as but not limited to telnet, for sending instructions to said apparatus such as but not limited to when said nodes should run said baseline collections, or when said apparatus has been placed in a said specific location near said encompassing medium and all said nodes are instructed to take said object detection collections, and deliver sets of analytical results such as but not limited to z-scoring back to said external device; j) an apparatus results reporting module providing the capability of numerical display, color, or sound indicating but not limited to communicating said node real-time analytical results where a high probability of a said object been determined; whereby the apparatus has the capability to receive the collection datasets and analytics from all said nodes, send commands to all said nodes, and both send and receive datasets and instructions from said external devices and alert the user to the immediate potential for a said object of interest having been detected by one or more said nodes of the apparatus.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 further enhanced for improved quality of gathered said event baseline and said object detection collections in order to derive evidence of said indeterminate artifacts or natural objects in an encompassing medium comprising one of more of the following additional modules: a) an enhanced said data quality module within each said event detecting said node to determine and tag said samples, either for said baseline collection or for said object detection collections, that are suspect as being improbable or as having an excess of outlier event samples and thus not be included in said node's or said apparatus's analysis; b) an internode communications module within each said node allowing it to request said baseline collections or said object detection collections from said nodes in close proximity or remote proximity thus allowing said enhanced data quality module to additionally apply various data grooming algorithms to said node's collections such as but not limited to giving more weight and validity to outlier samples held in common with said nodes in close proximity as being perhaps evidence of a potential object, and less weight to outlier samples from said nodes in remote proximity as perhaps being confounding events from the encompassing medium or other atmospheric event activity; c) enhanced said baseline evaluation and said evidence detection modules within each event detecting said node to generate and retain aggregated baseline collections and aggregated object detection collections based upon compiled and groomed collections based upon said enhanced internode communications module; d) an enhanced said evidence detection module within each said node, in order to leverage said aggregated baseline collections and said aggregated object detection collections against various probabilistic algorithms that are amenable to large datasets in said collections including but not limited to statistical z-scoring and poisson distributions for the said aggregated baseline collections and said aggregated object detection collections; e) an enhanced said baseline evaluation module within each said node to manage an increased set of said baseline collections to be used when appropriate while comparing to a said object detection collections based upon but not limited to time of day, global position latitude and longitude, or environmental conditions as reported to said node from said apparatus's said environmental conditions module regarding conditions such as but not limited to environmental temperature, wind, axial positioning of the apparatus, elevation, and humidity; f) an enhanced said data quality module within each said node that can independently declare said event collection it just took may be invalid and request said apparatus not be moved during a “retake” collection session or instead request said apparatus not to use certain said object detection collections as part of a broader analysis for a specific time period due to said node collection quality issues; g) an enhanced said data quality module within said node that may instead declare a request for said apparatus to modify parameters for all said nodes such as the number of said event samples taken per said collection, or the unit of time per said sample, in order to improve the quality of the data being collected where said apparatus then leverages said internode analytics module to determine what parameters for these measures best balance the ability to cover as much of said specific areas of interest during apparatus operation as possible, versus the quality needed to ensure a minimum of false negative collections; whereby said apparatus has a plurality of said nodes enhanced for improved quality of gathered said event baseline collections and said object detection collections based upon adjunct appropriate said collections from adjacent and remote said nodes to leverage as part of object detection and all said nodes may signal to said apparatus concerns about certain said object collections and send or receive instructions as to how to proceed to improve, remove, or retake certain said collections.

4. The apparatus of claim 2 further enhanced for event detection, sampling, and collection to improve the ability to derive evidence of said indeterminate artifact or natural objects comprising one of more of the following additional modules: a) an enhanced said node management module within said apparatus which communicates to all said nodes a specific object detection collection timeframe or actual said object detection collection that represents a previous successful object detection in a specific area of interest; b) an enhanced said baseline evaluation module and said evidence detection module within each said node that allows for both differential (null hypothesis) analysis such as but not limited to statistical z-scoring while also now providing for positive (minimal differential) comparison of future said object detection collections and those that led to successful object detection in a said specific area of interest previously; whereby said apparatus and said nodes have been enhanced to not only derive evidence detecting a potential object with indeterminate attributes but are now able to simultaneously attempt probable detection of objects with less uncertain event attributes modelling objects recently retrieved from the encompassing medium.

5. The apparatus of claim 2 further enhanced for event detection, sampling, and collection to improve the probabilities of detecting said object of interest comprising one of more of the following additional modules: a) one or more said nodes using specialized circuitry such as but not limited to pin diodes allowing directional event detection of gamma radiation placed on both flat and curved surfaces, either concave or convex, integrated into the apparatus; b) an enhanced said internode analytics module allowing the apparatus to then coordinate said event collection analysis across said pin based nodes to not only derive evidence of an object of interest but also through the use of geometrical formulas help derive the potential depth and location of the object; whereby said apparatus may continue evaluating the potential for said objects of interest using differential event analysis based upon omnidirectional event detection while also using more specific said nodes capable of specific directional event detection or specific event type detection to more discretely identify the location of a possible said indeterminate object of interest.

6. The apparatus of claim 2 further enhanced for event detection, sampling, and collection to improve the ability to derive evidence of an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium comprising one of more of the following additional modules: a) an enhanced said evidence detection module within each said node that allows said nodes to retain all said object detection collections within a specific area of interest across a duration of time and conducting differential analysis of any said object detection collection against said baseline collections and also against object detection collections across time to evaluate and quantify the probabilities of potential said objects existing inside the encompassing medium coming closer or moving further from any said nodes; whereby said apparatus and said nodes can employ temporal based analysis to derive evidence of a said object based upon event differential analysis as said nodes gather evidence of a change in position of said object in said encompassing medium whether it is the object moving in the encompassing medium or said apparatus moving or both said object and said apparatus.

7. The apparatus of claim 2 further enhanced for event detection, sampling, and collection to improve the ability to derive evidence of an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium comprising one of more of the following additional modules: a) an enhanced said apparatus containing a hybrid of said nodes across different event types such as but not limited to broad energy gamma radiation, specific gamma radiation, beta radiation, weight, atmospheric conditions, elevation, temperature, motion, vibration, and attributes derived from images of the encompassing medium such as color or texture; b) an enhanced said internode analytics module within the apparatus capable of generating integrated and collated time stamped hybrid records based upon said event samples gathered from the various said node types; c) an enhanced said internode analytics module within said apparatus capable of generating hybrid baseline collections and hybrid object detection collections from said hybrid time stamped records and then employing, but not limited to, various machine learning algorithms such as those leveraging covariant and multivariate analysis including multi-variable regression analyses using said hybrid baseline collections and said hybrid object detection collections; d) an enhanced said internode analytics module within said apparatus capable of generating hybrid baseline collections and hybrid object detection collections from said hybrid time stamped records and then employing, but not limited to, feature extraction and learning techniques including but not limited to neural networks; whereby through the addition of a plurality of said nodes allowing the apparatus to collect a plurality of event types, additional sophisticated covariant and multivariate algorithms such as but not limited to multi-variable regression analyses and other differential techniques often used to support dimensionality reduction while also determining the key event types that can be quantified as being deterministic of a potential said indeterminate object, can be employed to further the evidential detection of objects of an indeterminate nature in the encompassing medium.

8. The apparatus of claim 2 further enhanced to provide immediate feedback during apparatus usage and also post usage object detection evidential analysis comprising one or more of the following additional modules: a) an external data communications module providing the capability of transmitting all said node and apparatus collections and analytical results to persistent memory residing on but not limited to public or private compute cloud infrastructures, where said transmittal is conducted via industry standard protocols such as wireless ethernet and TLS secure protocols; b) processes running in hardware or software on said public or private cloud compute infrastructure programed to derive additional statistical evidential data based upon aggregating the currently delivered said baseline collections and said object detection collections with other such said collections including but not limited to those said collections gathered by other said apparatuses that have also inspected the identical specific area of interest or even the same said apparatus collections from a previous time period; c) said additional processing can include but is not limited to classic analytical algorithms such as z-scoring and differential analysis of the poisson distribution for the baseline and object detection collections; d) said additional processing can include but is not limited to various machine learning algorithms leveraging covariant and multivariate analysis such as but not limited to multi-variable regression analyses and other differential techniques often used to support dimensionality reduction while also determining the key event types that can be quantified as being deterministic of a potential indeterminate object; e) said additional processing can include but is not limited to various feature extraction and learning techniques including but not limited to neural networks where such features can deterministic of a potential indeterminate object; f) said external data communications module also capable of receiving back to the apparatus additional analytics and insights derived by the external systems and processes; whereby the usage and capability of said apparatus to derive evidence of a potential said indeterminate object is enhanced with the ability to send current said baseline collections and current said object detection collections to external storage and compute that has more processing power and can apply more sophisticated and complex algorithms against current and legacy collections and then return any critical results to the user in the field to give guidance on next steps with either said apparatus for continued searching or regarding a potential said object to attempt to retrieve from the encompassing medium.

9. A method for deriving evidence for an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium using multi-node differential event analysis, the method comprising: a) detecting potential evidence of an said indeterminate artifact or natural object by each of a plurality of independent said nodes, where each said node can detect events such as but not limited to gamma radiation events of any energy frequency, gamma radiation at a specific energy frequency or range, and beta radiation at any energy frequency; b) aggregating events into samplings using a time based unit of measurement such as events per second, with a set number of said samples aggregated into an event collection; c) providing the user steps for initiating either a said event collection representing either a said baseline collection for the general area of said encompassing medium, or steps for initiating a said object detection collection in a specific area of said encompassing medium to derive any evidence of a potential said indeterminate object of interest; d) receiving within each said node from said apparatus control instructions regarding the construction of a said collection including the time based unit for the aggregating of events such as but not limited to events-per-second and said samples per said collection; e) receiving within each said node from said apparatus appropriate said collection metadata to associate with each said collection such as but not limited to time, date, global position latitude and longitude, and elevation; f) deriving quantifiable evidence within each said node for a said indeterminate object in said encompassing medium using differential event analysis regarding said baseline collections as compared to said object detection collections including but not limited to z-scoring or differential analysis of the poisson distribution for the baseline and object detection collections; g) retaining all said baseline collections and object detection collections, along with appropriate said collection metadata regarding each said collection including but not limited to time and date the collection was taken, and environmental metadata such as global position latitude and longitude, elevation, and temperature; h) performing quality analysis on all said collections such as but not limited to qq-plot analysis to ensure the strongest appropriate quantified evidential results with a minimum of false positives and false negatives; i) aggregating and persisting within said apparatus all said node baseline and said object detection collections; j) performing aggregated inter-node analytics including but not limited to said aggregated node collections from co-located said nodes for usage in enhanced statistical analysis including but not limited to aggregated node z-scoring; k) performing aggregated inter-node analytics including but not limited to weighting outlier samples from co-located said nodes differently than for remote said nodes for usage in grooming outlier data in collections to emphasize events that have a higher probability of having emanated from potential said indeterminate objects as opposed to events from environmental concerns; l) alerting the user of the apparatus shortly after the completion of processing object detection collections whether any specific said node or an aggregate of said nodes has independently determined there is strong evidence of a potential said object within the encompassing medium; whereby the user of the apparatus, while investigating a specific area of said encompassing medium may become immediately aware that any given said node or any said aggregated nodes within the apparatus has derived evidence for the potential of a said indeterminate artifact or natural object through high quality differential event analysis.

10. A method of claim 9 further comprising the ability to derive evidence for an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium using multi-node differential covariant event analysis, the method comprising: a) aggregating within the apparatus said hybrid baseline collections and said hybrid object detection collections across said nodes of various event types such as but not limited to gamma radiation and beta radiation, deriving hybrid samples within said hybrid collection based upon but not limited to aggregating samples based upon aligned timestamps for said event samples; b) integrating into said hybrid baseline collections and said hybrid object detection collections appropriate quantified said collection metadata as part of the hybrid samples such as but not limited to ranges of temperature, ranges of elevation, ranges of global position latitude and longitude, and ranges of values regarding imagery of the encompassing medium such as color, volatility, and texture; c) performing aggregated inter-node analytics including but not limited to applying various covariant and multivariate statistical and machine learning algorithms across said hybrid baseline and said hybrid object detection collections including but not limited to multi-variable regression analyses and other differential techniques often used to support dimensionality reduction while also determining the key event types that can be quantified as being deterministic of a potential indeterminate object; d) performing aggregated inter-node analytics including but not limited to applying various feature extraction and learning techniques including but not limited to neural networks that can be deterministic of a complex feature representing a potential indeterminate object; whereby the user of the apparatus can benefit from advanced analysis of said baseline and object detection collections where a plurality of event types being emitted from an indeterminate object are modeled for covariance and multivariate differentiation and such differentiation lends evidence to the potential for an indeterminate object existing in the encompassing medium.

11. A method of claim 9 further comprising the ability to improve said node sample quality, the method comprising: a) detection within said samples for with said baseline collections or said object detection collections having an unacceptable level of outlier data, based upon but not limited to qq-plot analysis; b) communication from said node to said apparatus to request additional time at that specific location to retake a collection, or to request said node's collection not be used for any additional analytics such as but not limited to internode aggregated z-scoring; c) interaction between said apparatus and said user conducting investigations of said specific areas of interest the decisions said apparatus has made; d) providing said user options via an interface or external control device the ability to override the decisions of said apparatus; e) communication between said nodes and the apparatus to negotiate a change in parameters such as but not limited to number of said event samples taken per said collection, or the unit of time per sample, in order to improve the overall quality of the data being collected and balancing the amount of false positive and negative differential results with the ability to have the apparatus cover as many areas of specific interest possible during usage; whereby all said nodes may signal to the apparatus concerns about certain said object detection collections and send or receive instructions as to how to proceed to improve, remove, or retake certain collections.

12. A method of claim 9 further comprising the capability for deriving evidence for objects within the encompassing medium that are somewhat less indeterminate based upon other newly discovered objects within the medium, the method comprising: a) communication from the apparatus to said nodes instructing them to either retain a specific object detection collection said node had collected during a specific timeframe as a new additional said baseline collection for an event type representing correlation for positive (little) differentiation, or actually delivering a specific said object detection collection to each said node representing the exemplar said object detection collection that aided in the discovery of a previously said indeterminate object; b) evaluation by each independent said node allowing for both traditional differential (null hypothesis) analysis such as but not limited to statistical z-scoring while also now providing for positive (minimal differential, e.g. correlation) comparison based profile matching regarding the new said object detection collections taken by said node and those that led to successful object detection in a specific area of interest previously; whereby said event detecting said nodes have been enhanced to not only derive evidence detecting a potential said object with indeterminate attributes but are now able to simultaneously attempt probable detection of said objects with less uncertain event attributes that model said objects recently retrieved from said encompassing medium.

13. A method of claim 9 further comprising the capability for deriving increased evidence regarding the potential location of an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium, the method comprising: a) performing analysis based upon said nodes having the capability to derive omnidirectional evidence of an indeterminate object in the encompassing medium, with only a rough sense the object is within detection range of the apparatus within the medium, and where narrowing the location of said object can only be done by comparing the strength of the evidence across the plurality of omnidirectional nodes and looking for stronger evidential trends between adjacent said nodes assumed to be closer to said object; b) performing additional analysis at the apparatus level using said object detection collections gathered from directional nodes with event detecting sensors having stronger event sensing capabilities in a specific direction where a plurality of these said directional nodes have been placed on curved surfaces, either convex or concave. within the apparatus; c) analysis of the overall results for specific said directional nodes that have provided strong evidence of a potential said indeterminate object located along a narrow (x,y,z) three dimensional axis, and leveraging geometrical calculations to estimate location and depth for said object in the encompassing medium; whereby said apparatus may continue evaluating the potential for objects of interest using differential event analysis based upon omnidirectional event detection while also using more specific said directional nodes capable of specific directional event detection or specific event type detection to more discretely identify the location of a possible said object of interest.

14. A method of claim 9 further comprising the capability for deriving increased evidence of an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium, the method comprising: a) comparing differential analysis of said object detection collection within each independent said node to the appropriate said baseline collections, but also performing differential analysis to said object detection collections recently taken by another said node at an adjoining specific location, in order to derive evidence of any said indeterminate object of interest coming closer or moving farther away from the apparatus; whereby said apparatus and said nodes can employ temporal based analysis to derive evidence of a said object based upon event differential analysis as said nodes gather evidence of a change in position of said object in said encompassing medium whether it is the object moving in the encompassing medium or said apparatus moving or both said object and said apparatus.

15. A method of claim 9 further comprising the capability for deriving increased evidence of an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium, the method comprising: a) generating within the apparatus timestamp collated said hybrid baseline collections and hybrid object detection collections integrating the various event types said nodes in said apparatus are capable of detecting, where examples of the various event types can include but not be limited to broad energy gamma radiation, specific gamma radiation, beta radiation, weight variances, atmospheric conditions, or quantified ranges for elevation, temperature, motion, vibration, or ranges of attributes from images regarding the encompassing medium such as color, texture, and density; b) employing various covariant and multivariate analysis including but not limited to various machine learning algorithms generally used for anomaly detection such as but not limited to multi-variable regression analyses and other differential techniques often used to support dimensionality reduction while also determining the key event types that can be quantified as being deterministic of a potential indeterminate object; whereby through the addition of a plurality of multiple event types being collected by the apparatus, additional sophisticated covariant and multivariate algorithms can be employed to further the evidential detection of objects of an indeterminate nature in the encompassing medium.

16. A method of claim 9 further comprising the capability for deriving increased evidence of an indeterminate artifact or natural object in an encompassing medium, the method comprising: a) communication to external processes outside the apparatus and transmittal of all said node and apparatus collections and analytical results; b) generation by said external said processes additional statistical evidential data based upon aggregating the currently delivered said baseline collections and object detection collections with the appropriate said collections including but not limited to those collections gathered by other said apparatuses that have also inspected the specific area of interest, or by the same said apparatus previously; c) generation by said external said processes additional analytics for a potential said object based upon but not limited to various machine learning algorithms such as those leveraging covariant and multivariate analysis leveraging both said hybrid baseline collections and said hybrid object detection collections; d) communication back to the apparatus additional analytics and insights derived by the external systems and processes; e) alerting by the apparatus to said user any strong evidence of an indeterminate artifact or natural object in the encompassing medium, thus allowing said user to make an informed decision as to whether to continue using the apparatus to continue searching, or to attempt to explore into the encompassing medium the potential said object; whereby the usage and capability of said apparatus to derive evidence of a potential said indeterminate object is enhanced with the ability to send current said baseline collections and said object detection collections to external storage and compute that has more processing power and can apply more sophisticated and complex algorithms regarding the current and legacy collections and then return any critical results to the user in the field to give guidance on next steps with either the apparatus for continued searching or regarding a potential said object to attempt to retrieve from the encompassing medium.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0023] The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a part of the specification, illustrate some, but not the only or exclusive, examples of embodiments and/or features. It is intended that the embodiments and figures disclosed herein are to be considered illustrative rather than limiting. In the drawings those skilled in the art will recognize the sophisticate nature of the multi-node apparatus, in particular it's capabilities to compensate for the complexities of running probabilistic analysis of certain event types including not but limited to radiation detection from an indeterminate object such as a fossil while embedded in a medium such as complex layers of sandstone and mudstone within a formation. The invention manages to derive evidence of such objects while also providing compensating measures for confounding radiation within the medium itself and also from the surrounding environment.

[0024] FIG. 1 depicts a schematic representation of the typical apparatus instrumentation, including the plurality of event detecting nodes, and also all the supportive apparatus components to support the ability of all nodes to generate independent analysis for the potential of an indeterminate object embedded in the encompassing medium, in accordance with the present invention.

[0025] FIG. 2 depicts a schematic representation of a typical node, including having the needed sensor along with supportive analog and digital circuitry to detect events which may be emitted from said indeterminate object.

[0026] FIG. 3 depicts a schematic representation of the apparatus using both omnidirectional and directional nodes located on both flat and curved surfaces, with the apparatus placed above an encompassing medium where indeterminate objects may be evidentially detected. This embodiment is used in order to improve the ability of the apparatus to provide better directional guidance as to the potential placement of indeterminate objects of interest within the encompassing medium.

[0027] FIG. 4 depicts an overhead view schematic representation of the nodes of apparatus located in a specific area of interest sitting on top of the encompassing medium, where an indeterminate object of interest may be located. The apparatus nodes are in one specific area of interest located amongst a plurality of locations of interest, and these locations of interest are located in a general area of interest which also includes specific areas known not to have fossils and thus are useful for generating baseline collections.

[0028] FIG. 5 depicts traditional statistical analysis from a plurality of nodes in terms of box plots and Z scoring, leading to very strong but not absolute evidence of an object being located in the encompassing medium; the nodes were collecting event results as part of a 60 sample collection. This is merely the basic type of analysis process whereas the invention supports many additional sophisticated differential analytical methodologies, including but not limited to machine learning and other automatic algorithms. Although it is basic, the Z scoring is still a valuable metric as it can quantify how likely an object is to be present within a specific area of an encompassing medium.

[0029] FIG. 6 depicts a schematic representation of the apparatus using standard networking protocols to deliver key results to a hand-held device regarding recently derived evidence of an indeterminate object and also to receive further instructions for proceeding with gathering collections. The schematic also represents, the apparatus delivering all collections to a cloud based infrastructure both for persistence and for further analytical processing.

[0030] FIG. 7 depicts the process for the apparatus gathering baseline collections and also object detection collections.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0031] As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a physical apparatus, method or computer program product implementing capabilities both on the event sensing apparatus and on supplemental devices used in conjunction with the apparatus. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in one or more computer readable medium(s) having computer readable program code embodied therein.

[0032] Many of the functional units described in this specification have been labeled as modules, in order to more particularly emphasize their implementation independence. For example, a module may be implemented as a hardware circuit comprising custom electronic circuits or gate arrays, off-the-shelf semiconductors such as logic chips, transistors, or other discrete components. A module may also be implemented in programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays, programmable array logic, programmable logic devices or the like.

[0033] Modules may also be implemented in software for execution by various types of processors. An identified module of executable code may, for instance, comprise one or more physical or logical blocks of computer instructions which may, for instance, be organized as an object, procedure, or function. Nevertheless, the executables of an identified module need not be physically located together, but may comprise disparate instructions stored in different locations which, when joined logically together, comprise the module and achieve the stated purpose for the module.

[0034] It is noted and anticipated that although the invention is illustrated in the following figures, flow charts, and simple user interface diagrams, various aspects and features of the disclosed method may be modified when configuring the invention herein. As such those skilled in the art will appreciate the descriptions, depictions, and diagrams are merely set forth in this disclosure to portray examples of preferred modes and are not to be considered limiting in any manner.

[0035] Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” or similar language means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment,” “in an embodiment,” and similar language throughout this specification may, but do not necessarily, all refer to the same embodiment.

[0036] Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics of the invention may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the following description, numerous specific details are provided, such as examples of programming, software modules, user selections, network transactions, database queries, database structures, hardware modules, hardware circuits, hardware chips, etc., to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the invention. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the invention may be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, and so forth. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the invention.

[0037] There is seen in FIG. 1 the overall architecture and modules for the apparatus 100, including the plurality of independent event detecting nodes 102, and also all the apparatus components to support the ability of all nodes that generate independent analysis for the potential of an indeterminate object embedded in the encompassing medium. The event sensing nodes, or more simply referred to as the nodes 102, are encapsulated and managed by a node aggregator module 101 which manages and delivers the centralized needs for the nodes including but not limited to data communications and redundant power that can range from a few volts up to several hundred volts for gaseous tubes capable of sensing events such as gamma and beta radiation. The power management module 103 provides adequate levels of power appropriate for the type of event detection that is occurring, along with power for all the digital and analog circuitry within the nodes and the apparatus, and also provides but is not limited to power redundancy for the nodes and the apparatus. The environmental module 104 is capable of delivering to all said nodes data as to what the specific environmental conditions are during usage including but not limited to GPS location, time, elevation, temperature, and humidity for the apparatus while the apparatus is engaged in collection gathering, and such data can then be associated as valid metadata regarding any taken baseline or event detecting collection. Such metadata may be useful during analysis in many ways, including but not limited to using the metadata to partition differential analysis into grouping such as managing background collections into grouping where there is more convergence on baseline collection results based upon ranges of elevation; the apparatus would then make the decision to tell all nodes to gather and manage baselines within those ranges of elevation and then perform differential analysis for any given object detection collection using the appropriate elevation baseline. The node management module 105 monitors decisions the apparatus has made regarding balancing quality concerns about collections taken and issues commands to all said nodes regarding but not limited to expected sampling time duration, number of samples per said collection, and when to initiate the gathering of said collections. The data communications module 106 is capable of receiving data from the nodes including but not limited to all samples gathered as part of a collection, along with each node's differential quantitative analysis of the evidential probability of a said indeterminate object being detected. The data storage module 107 stores all node results across a time horizon including but not limited to all gathered node baseline and object detection collections, and all analytical results gathered from the nodes. The internode analytics module 108 provides capabilities including but not limited to applying Z scoring for internode aggregated collections for nodes of the same event type along with grooming said collections for quality concerns based upon but not limited to QQ plot analysis, which those skilled in the art of statistical analysis will appreciate is one of the most common ways of comparing a distribution of probabilities to a well formed normal distribution. This module may also apply but not be limited to various covariant and multivariate statistical and machine learning algorithms across collections for nodes with different event types or varying metadata values, or various feature extraction and learning techniques including but not limited to neural networks. The external control module 109 provides communications abilities to an external device such as but not limited to a smartphone or tablet, using network protocols such as but not limited to telnet, for sending instructions to said apparatus such as but not limited to when said nodes should run said baseline collections, or when the apparatus has been placed in a said specific location near said encompassing medium and all nodes are instructed to take object detection collections, and deliver sets of analytical results such as but not limited to Z scoring back to said external device. The apparatus results reporting module 110 provides the capability of numerical display, color, or sound indicating but not limited to communicating node real-time analytical results where a high probability of an indeterminate object has been determined to be highly likely within range of the apparatus. The external data communications module 111 provides the capability of transmitting all said node and apparatus collections and analytical results to persistent memory residing on but not limited to public or private compute cloud infrastructures, or other compute servers that have been brought into the general area of interest, where said transmittal is conducted via industry standard protocols such as but not limited to wireless Ethernet and TLS secure protocols.

[0038] There is seen in FIG. 2 the overall architecture and modules for an event detecting node 102. The event detection module 200 is capable of detecting events 201 such as but not limited to radiation emitted from various objects or environments including indeterminate objects of interest, or the encompassing medium, or even the overall environment the apparatus is operating in. Within the event detection module the actual sensor 202 is encapsulated along with any needed analog 203 circuitry to amplify and to condition the evidence 204 emitted by the sensor that the event occurred, and then any needed digital circuitry 213 required to further groom and amplify the evidence into a digital signal 205 that can be recorded as a discrete event for incorporation into a timed sample. The control module 206 receives the digital signals representing a detected event and also manages the parameters for how each node will quantify sampling time duration such as but not limited to events-per-second, and the number of samples for a collection to be evaluated, such as but not limited to sixty samples per collection, and then records the results for each sample and for each event collection. The baseline evaluation module 207 allows each node to independently retain its own said collection and analysis on what comprises a baseline level of event activity for baseline collections when no said object of interest is within a generally targeted area where there will eventually be specifically targeted areas where object detection collections will be taken. The evidence detection module 208 allows each node to independently generate object detection collections for comparison to said baseline collections and to conduct quantifiable differential analysis regarding whether event activity occurring within any given said object detection collection indicates, based on differential analysis compared to the baseline collection, evidence of a said indeterminate object of interest is within said specifically targeted area. Such differential analysis can include but is not limited to Z scoring or other traditional statistical approaches such as analysis of the Poisson distribution for the baseline and object detection collections. The data quality module 209 allows each node to evaluate the possibilities that said baseline collections and said object detection collections have gathered consistent data within their domains, including analysis techniques including but not limited to QQ plot analysis. The internode communications module 210 allows nodes to request event baseline and object detection collections from nodes in close proximity or remote proximity thus allowing said enhanced data quality module to additionally apply various data grooming algorithms to said node's object detection collections such as but not limited to giving more weight and validity to outlier samples held in common with nodes in close proximity as being perhaps evidence of a potential indeterminate object, and less weight to those outlier samples from nodes in remote proximity as perhaps being confounding events from the encompassing medium or other atmospheric event activity. The apparatus communications module 211 is capable of transmitting to the apparatus all baseline collections, object detection collections, and analytical results along with sending and receiving commands and parameters for the control module. The collections management module 212 allows each said node to retain said baseline collections and said object detection collections along with appropriate metadata about the collections which can be useful for differential analysis including but not limited to time, date, GPS, temperature, elevation, and other environmental conditions.

[0039] There is seen in FIG. 3 in one embodiment there is the usage of broad energy gamma event sensing tubes 200 along with more directional gamma sensing pin diodes 302 located on the curved surface 301 (for clarity of the diagram only the sensors are shown in the node aggregator module 101). Those skilled in the art of radiation science will appreciate that events such as gamma radiation or beta radiation 201 may originate from many sources and not just from indeterminate object or objects of interest 303 in the encompassing medium 304. Generally, the gaseous tubes 200 are more sensitive overall to any and all gamma and beta radiation including confounding radiation from the encompassing medium or the environment, but those skilled in the art of radiation science, statistical analysis, and data science will appreciate that given enough samples across time, the gaseous tubes closer to the object of interest which is giving off somewhat or slightly higher levels of radiation than the encompassing medium, will over time accrue samples with evidentially detectable differences as opposed to the gaseous tubes that are farther away since radiation tends to drop off as the square of the distance from the source of radiation thus leveraging a key aspect of the apparatus namely the multiple nodes all capable of independent gathering and independent differential analysis of its own baseline collections to its own event detecting collections for a specific event type. Since the indeterminate objects of interest are truly unknown in terms of size and their actual depth, simply having a general sense that one gaseous tube showing stronger evidence for an object in an approximate direction may not give the ideal amount of guidance to the user of the apparatus as to how deep to excavate to find the object. In this case, even though the pin diodes may take more time to accrue a reasonably strong amount of evidence, under these circumstances the apparatus may instruct these pin diodes to take enough samples such that the pin diodes that are physically aligned with the objects will evidentially detect the objects whereas the other pin diodes will constantly have object detection collections that are akin to their baseline collections. The pin diodes which then are physically aligned then allow the apparatus to use those pin diodes known orientations on the curved surface to use standard geometry to triangulate the most likely depth and position for the embedded object.

[0040] There is seen in FIG. 4 an example of practical usage of the multi-node apparatus. The researcher upon reaching a general area of interest 400 where there may be a suspected indeterminate object or objects of interest in the encompassing medium would first set the apparatus into a location or locations he or she is strongly certain no such objects are embodied such as but not limited to those locations that have already been explored 402 and found to contain no objects. Such locations allow the nodes to model and retain a set of converged baseline collections based upon the quality attributes encoded into the apparatus using techniques such as but not limited to QQ plot analysis, and outlier sample analysis. With robust baseline collections established, the researcher then may start leveraging the apparatus's capability to derive evidence of indeterminate objects by placing the apparatus within a set of collocated specific areas of interest 401. Those skilled in the art of radiation science will appreciate that for many of the specific areas of interest where there are no indeterminate objects within a certain distance of the apparatus, the nodes (depicted as just sensors 200 for brevity and clarity) will detect little differential evidence between its baseline collections and (as an example) the object detection collection it gathered in the top left corner of the adjacent specific areas of interest 401. As the apparatus is moved across the adjacent specific locations of interest, those skilled in the art of radiation science, statistical analysis, and data science will appreciate that assuming indeterminate objects of interest emit a slightly higher level of the events, at least a percentage of the nodes in the apparatus, given the appropriate parameters for the nodes in terms of sampling and collections, will be able to provide quantifiable evidence (perhaps even using basic statistical measure such as Z scoring) that an indeterminate object of interest 303 is being detected within the encompassing medium using the area of interest where the diagram currently shows the apparatus and its nodes. Those skilled in the art of radiation science will appreciate that, again assuming the apparatus nodes have gathered valid baseline collections, there will be a percentage of nodes that will almost certainly be indicating evidence of an embedded object when placed in any of the lower-right specific areas of interest. There is the possibility based upon the vagaries of gamma radiation emissions, that some of those nodes one might expect to show strong evidence for an embedded object may not do so based upon the vagaries of gamma radiation behavior. Aggregated results based upon adjacent nodes, along with other techniques described in this specification regarding outlier sample analysis and various statistical approaches can significantly reduce the impact of this gamma radiation vagary to provide high fidelity object detection in the encompassing medium.

[0041] There is seen in FIG. 5 an example of differential analytics from two nodes of the apparatus, as demonstrated by a straightforward boxplot 500 and a standard statistical Z score 501. This usage of the apparatus occurred within the “one-eleven ranch” formation in the state of Arizona, and after excavation the indeterminate object was realized as the femur of an extinct species of Camelops. The one-eleven ranch formation is nearly three million years old and much of the matrix (soil, sand, stone, etc.) within the formation has slightly more Uranium than other areas on the planet; the fossils encompassed in the formation have accrued this Uranium as the collagen lattice binding the microcrystalline bone hydroxyapatite was replaced with new fluorapatite which readily absorbs and concentrates uranium during crystallization, resulting in the encompassed fossil now emitting up to 300% more gamma radiation than the surrounding matrix (e.g. the encompassing medium). Based upon analysis of the matrix and typical one-eleven ranch fossils in a controlled lab environment, the apparatus configured itself to create collections of 60 samples 509 based upon said lab environment testing where the apparatus was able to derive a 95% confidence when a one-eleven ranch fossil weighing one hundred grams was placed under thirty centimeters of matrix that had been collected from one-eleven ranch, where a sample is the number of gamma events per second. The baseline collection for node #1 502 was then taken in the field, sensing an average of 2.05 gamma events per second 504 with 75% of the samples 505 detecting less than 3 gamma events per second. The standard deviation for the baseline collection 511 was 2.31 events per second. When the apparatus was placed in the specific area of interest that ended up discovering the Camelops femur an object detection collection was taken by node #1 503 where the average gamma events 512 across the sixty samples in that object detection collection rose to 3.93 counts per second. Using traditional Z scoring and comparing the differences in the averages 510 the resultant Z score was 3.63 which yielded a quantifiable result that one could confidently reject the null hypotheses that there was no indeterminate object generating additional gamma events 99.9% of the time. This was an exemplar situation since the one-eleven ranch formation has quite radioactive fossils as compared to the encompassing medium and in this case the Camelops femur was quite large, with a good deal of it within several inches of the surface of the matrix then tilting at an angle into the matrix. Had the confidence level been much lower, say perhaps in the 60% range, but still a confidence level that started to show promise, one skilled in the art of engineering and statistical analysis can appreciate how the aggregation of data from collocated nodes for both baseline collections 507 and object detecting collections 508 across the multi-node apparatus could help create a larger collection for even basic techniques like Z scores. One can see how rapidly the Z scoring and thus quantified probabilistic object detection rises as samples across collated nodes 512 are used as part of further analysis by the apparatus or when such aggregated analysis is delegated down to the nodes depending on the embodiment of the invention. It will also be evident to one skilled in the art of statistical analysis that such a multi-node architecture which allows for the generation of large datasets across the nodes supports many other techniques for grooming the data for analysis. In this exemplar case it can be seen that there were few outlier samples in the baseline collections whereas the object detection collections that were taken that helped detect the Camelops femur yielded a high number of outlier samples 506 with bursts of up to 14 gamma events per second. In this exemplar case because there is outlier consistency across collocated baseline collections and also collocated object detection collections, the apparatus instructed the nodes to include outlier data in its analysis. Other options for grooming the sample data in the collections could have included eliminating from the collections outlier samples that had a common profile between the baseline and event detection nodes, or performing analysis of outlier behavior from collated nodes versus remote nodes that were less likely to have detected the object of interest. It is worth repeating this was an exemplar example and one which lent itself to a discussion of multi-node capabilities and opportunities. The usage of Z scoring while powerful and practical is only one example of how differential analysis could be conducted using baseline and object detection collections gathered across nodes. Other differential analysis for one event type can include but is not limited to the Poisson distributions regarding the baseline and object detection collections. For embodiments where the apparatus has nodes collecting various event types, in addition to Z scoring and Poisson distributions per event type those skilled in the art of data science will appreciate that many covariant and multivariate statistical and machine learning algorithms may be used such as but not limited to multi-variable regression analyses, principle component analysis, and other differential techniques often used to support dimensionality reduction while also determining the key event types that can be quantified as being deterministic of a potential indeterminate object. Those skilled in the art of data science will also appreciate that the generation of such evidential data based upon a plurality of event types having potentially complex correlations between the event types lends itself to analysis by various feature extraction and learning techniques including but not limited to neural networks.

[0042] There is seen in FIG. 6 a schematic representation of the apparatus 100 and its external data communications module 111 to leverage standard networking protocols 603 including but not limited to wireless Ethernet to deliver key results to a hand-held device 602 under direct control of the user 601 regarding recently derived evidence of an indeterminate object. While many embodiments of the apparatus have onboard controls for allowing the user to trigger baseline and object detection collections, the hand-held device can also be used to transmit to the apparatus further instructions for proceeding 604 with gathering collections. The handheld device can include but not be limited to being a smart phone running a simple telnet client, or a fully developed application leveraging any standard networking protocols. The schematic also represents the apparatus delivering all collections to a public or private cloud based infrastructure 600 both for persistence of all collections and analytical results along with any further analytical processing that is desired.

[0043] There is seen in FIG. 7 a set of process diagrams both for the method of having all nodes in the apparatus capture baseline collections 700 and also for capturing object detection collections 705. To initiate baseline collections 700 the user first must locate at least one if not a plurality of locations with the general area of interest 701, such as a geological formation as the potentially encompassing medium, that it is highly unlikely to have an artifact or natural object of interest embedded and encompassed therein. The user ether via controls located on the apparatus or via an internal control device such as a smart phone in network communication of the device instructs 702 the apparatus and all its nodes to take a baseline collection. After completion of a baseline collection all nodes then may perform quality analysis 703 such as but not limited to QQ plot analysis to make sure the collections in the sample are unlikely to have poor data that might skew results when used to conduct differential analysis against the upcoming object detection collections. Embodiments of the apparatus will have a desire to run a plurality of baseline collections 704 to look for consistency and convergence between the collections; this also allows the user of the apparatus to move said apparatus to several locations 701 unlikely to contain embedded objects, and any errant baseline collections that run contrary to convergence can be removed from consideration as a baseline and also flagged for later investigation as a collection that may actually be detecting an encompassed indeterminate artifact or natural object. There can be seen as part of gathering object detection collections 705 that the first activity is for the apparatus to confirm it has valid baseline collections 706 for the general area such as the formation, along with any desired metadata for governing the baseline collection usage such as but not limited to elevation or temperature; if such baseline collections do not exist the user is instructed to redirect and gather the needed baseline collections 700. If the appropriate baseline collections do exist, the apparatus proceeds with instructing all nodes to gather an object detection collection for the specific area of interest 707. Once all nodes report they have gathered an appropriate object detection collection they also all then run the appropriate quality algorithms 708 against said collection including but not limited to QQ plot analysis. If any of the nodes report to the apparatus concerns about their object detection collections to the apparatus 709, the apparatus may choose to instruct some or all the nodes to rerun their object detection collection for that specific area of interest 707. If instead the apparatus determines that all or a sufficient number of nodes have gathered object detection collection of sufficient quality all nodes are then instructed to conduct the appropriate differential analysis comparing baseline and object detection collections and/or any requested internode or apparatus level differential analytics 710. All nodes store their collections and results both within the node storage and also the apparatus storage along with outputting any and all collection and analytical results to any networked devices 711. The apparatus them alerts the user by both using onboard modules for displaying textual results and graphics or generating any appropriate auditory alerts regarding any key evidential findings, along with also outputting these key alerted findings to any networked devices 712.