Radioactive seed sorter and method for sorting radioactive seeds

摘要

Method and apparatus for assaying and sorting radioactive seeds that provides for feeding seeds in line horizontally in end to end fashion; translating the seeds from the horizontal to a vertical stack; singulating the seeds from the vertical stack and moving a singulated seed to a horizontally displaced position; loading the horizontally displaced singulated seed into a shuttle by pushing vertically downward into a cavity in the shuttle; moving the shuttle horizontally from a retracted position where it receives a singulated seed, into one end of an annular dose calibrator to an intermediate position within the dose calibrator and out of the other end of the annular dose calibrator to an unloader position; determining the activity of the singulated seed contained in the cavity while it is in the intermediate position; dropping the singulated seed into one of a plurality of receptacles at the unloader position; and controlling the plurality of receptacles to position a preselected receptacle to receive the singulated seed based on the activity determined.