Flexible, High-Performance Electronics for Nuclear Medical Imaging

用于核医学成像的灵活、高性能电子设备

• 批准号: 8580533
• 负责人: WOON-SENG CHOONG
• 金额: $ 81.67万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIF-LAWRENC BERKELEY LAB
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-01 至 2017-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8580533
• 关键词: Advanced Development; Algorithms; Calibration; Clinical; Collaborations; Communities; Computer software; Computers; Data; Deposition; Development; Digital Signal Processing; Documentation; Electronics; Emission-Computed Tomography; Event; Funding; Gamma Rays; Goals; Image; Lead; Manufacturer Name; Measures; Medical Imaging; Microprocessor; Modification; Nature; Nuclear; Performance; Photons; Positioning Attribute; Positron; Process; Public Health; Reading; Research; Research Activity; Research Personnel; Resolution; Resource Development; Resources; Sampling; Services; Signal Transduction; Solutions; Source; Source Code; System; Technology; Testing; Time; Training; Training Support; Variant; Vendor; Work; Writing; analog; attenuation; base; computerized data processing; data acquisition; design; detector; digital; flexibility; open source; pre-clinical; prototype; public health relevance; single photon emission computed tomography; tool; wasting; web site

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nuclear medical imaging such as single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission computed tomography (PET) have become important tools in pre-clinical and clinical imaging applications. A major task in developing a nuclear medical imaging camera is the electronics system. The problem is that such electronics requires a significant development effort beyond the capability of most research groups. While commercial PET and SPECT camera manufacturers have developed such electronics, they are typically optimized for specific products (and so are difficult to adapt and usually are proprietary (and so are not available to most researchers). Currently, research groups with sufficient resources are forced to independently develop their own customized electronics for specific projects. Research groups without sufficient resources or expertise are forced instead to depend on commercially available electronics with limited flexibility for handling high-performance detectors and limited access to source code for modification. Overall, this situation can lead to detector and camera design compromises that sacrifice performance, due to the difficulties of designing the electronics system. It also wastes the limited resources (funding, time, expertise, etc.) since researchers are working independently and duplicating efforts. In this project we propose to develop a flexible, scalable, and high-performance OpenPET electronics system with open availability to overcome these problems. While there are a tremendous number of variations, the relatively simple nature of the data ultimately collected implies that there can be a common set of requirements, which would allow us to develop OpenPET into a community resource that would resolve one of the major problems faced by developers of nuclear medical imaging cameras. Each gamma ray interaction is characterized by a small number of attributes, usually no more than a three-dimensional interaction position, a measure of the deposited energy, and an interaction time. Data are collected either as single interactions or coincident pairs, and only a small amount of ancillary information is needed (such as count rates, the position of an attenuation source, or a gating signal). The OpenPET design is largely driven by the need for flexibility, high performance and "open- source." We will achieve these needs by: (1) extensive use of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to provide highly programmable electronics, (2) utilizing waveform sampling in the electronics to make the signal processing more flexible and to achieve higher performance than conventional analog electronics circuitry, (3) having ready procurement of the system hardware from pre-arranged vendors, (4) having documentation and source code freely available, and (5) developing a user community that will pool their software and hardware enhancements. The ultimate goal is to provide a rich set of solution and enabling technology for the research community at large.

描述（由申请人提供）：核医学成像，如单光子发射计算机断层扫描（SPECT）和正电子发射计算机断层扫描（PET）已成为临床前和临床成像应用中的重要工具。研制核医学成像相机的一个主要任务是电子系统。问题是，这样的电子需要一个显着的发展努力超出了大多数研究小组的能力。虽然商业PET和SPECT相机制造商已经开发了这种电子产品，但它们通常针对特定产品进行了优化（因此难以适应，并且通常是专有的（因此大多数研究人员无法使用）。目前，拥有足够资源的研究小组被迫为特定项目独立开发自己的定制电子产品。没有足够资源或专业知识的研究小组被迫依赖于商业上可用的电子设备，这些电子设备在处理高性能探测器方面的灵活性有限，并且对源代码进行修改的访问也有限。总的来说，由于设计电子系统的困难，这种情况可能导致检测器和相机设计妥协，从而牺牲性能。它还浪费了有限的资源（资金、时间、专业知识等）。因为研究人员都是独立工作，重复工作。在这个项目中，我们建议开发一个灵活的，可扩展的，高性能的OpenPET电子系统与开放的可用性，以克服这些问题。虽然有大量的变化，最终收集的数据相对简单的性质意味着可以有一组共同的要求，这将使我们能够将OpenPET开发成一个社区资源，解决核医学成像相机开发人员面临的主要问题之一。每个伽马射线相互作用的特征在于少量的属性，通常不超过一个三维的相互作用的位置，沉积的能量的测量，和相互作用的时间。数据被收集为单个相互作用或重合对，并且仅需要少量的辅助信息（例如计数率、衰减源的位置或门控信号）。OpenPET的设计很大程度上是由灵活性、高性能和“开源”需求驱动的。“我们将通过以下方式满足这些需求：（1）广泛使用现场可编程门阵列（FPGA）以提供高度可编程的电子器件，（2）在电子器件中利用波形采样以使信号处理更灵活并实现比传统模拟电子电路更高的性能，（3）从预先安排的供应商处容易地采购系统硬件，（4）免费提供文档和源代码，（5）开发一个用户社区，将他们的软件和硬件增强功能汇集在一起。最终目标是为整个研究社区提供丰富的解决方案和支持技术。