ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,693,243, issued on July 28, was assigned to Nuctech Co. Ltd. (Beijing) and Tsinghua University (Beijing).

"Ray scanning apparatus" was invented by Zhiqiang Chen (Beijing), Li Zhang (Beijing), Qingping Huang (Beijing), Yong Zhou (Beijing), Zhenhua Zhao (Beijing), Hui Ding (Beijing), Xin Jin (Beijing) and Chao Ji (Beijing).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A ray scanning apparatus, including: a conveying device; a ray source assembly including a plurality of ray source modules arranged around the scanning area in a non-enclosed structure opened on one side of the scanning area; and a detector assembly including a plurality of detector sets arr...