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: 8704934
• 负责人: WOON-SENG CHOONG
• 金额: $ 79.22万
• 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/8704934
• 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; data acquisition; design; detector; digital; flexibility; open source; pre-clinical; prototype; public health relevance; signal processing; 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(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的重要工具。研制核医学成像相机的一个主要任务是电子学系统。问题是，这种电子产品需要大量的研发工作，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，但它们通常是针对特定产品进行优化的(因此很难适应，而且通常是专有的(因此大多数研究人员无法获得)。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团队被迫依赖商业上可用的电子产品，在处理高性能探测器方面灵活性有限，对源代码进行修改的机会也有限。总体而言，由于设计电子系统的困难，这种情况可能会导致探测器和相机设计的折衷，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)因为研究人员正在独立工作并重复努力。在这个项目中，我们建议开发一个灵活的、可扩展的、高性能的开放可用的OpenPET电子系统来克服这些问题。虽然有大量的变化，但最终收集的数据的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，从而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是少量的属性，通常不超过三维相互作用位置、沉积能量的测量和相互作用时间。数据以单相互作用或重合对的形式收集，并且只需要少量的辅助信息(例如计数速率、衰减源的位置或选通信号)。OpenPET的设计在很大程度上是出于对灵活性、高性能和“开源”的需求。我们将通过以下方式实现这些需求：(1)广泛使用现场可编程门阵列(FGA)来提供高度可编程的电子设备；(2)在电子设备中利用波形采样，使信号处理更加灵活，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获得现成的系统硬件；(4)免费提供文档和源代码；以及(5)发展一个用户社区，以汇集他们的软件和硬件增强功能。最终目标是为整个研究社区提供一套丰富的解决方案和使能技术。