Gyula Hegyesi

Development of an FPGA-based data acquisition module for small animal PET

We report on the design of a data acquisition (DAQ) module for a small animal PET camera developed at our institutes. During the design an important guideline was to develop a system which is built up from strictly identical DAQ modules, and which has no built-in hardware limitation on the maximum number of modules. The developed DAQ module comprises of an LSO scintillator crystal block, a position sensitive PMT, analog signal conditioning circuits, a digitizer, an field programmable gate array (FPGA) for digital signal processing, and a communication module through which the collected data are sent to a cluster of computers for postprocessing and storage. Instead of implementing hardware coincidence detection between the modules, we attach a precise time stamp to each event in our design, and the coincidence is determined by the data collecting computers during postprocessing. The digital CFD algorithm implemented in the FPGA gives a time resolution of 2 ns FWHM for real detector signals

Ethernet based distributed data acquisition system for a small animal PET

We report on the design of a small animal PET scanner being developed at our institutes. The existing setup is the first version of the miniPET machine consisting of four detector modules. Each detector module consists of an 8times8 LSO scintillator crystal block, a position sensitive photomultiplier, a digitizer including a digital signal processing board and an Ethernet interface board. There is no hardware coincidence detection implemented in the system and coincidence is determined based on a time stamp attached to every event by a digital CFD algorithm. The algorithm is implemented in the digital signal processing board and generates a time stamp with a coincidence resolution of less than 2 ns. The data acquisition system is based on Ethernet network and is highly scalable in size and performance

Particle discriminator for the identification of light charged particles with CsI(Tl) scintillator + PIN photodiode detector

Abstract A particle discriminator exploiting the ballistic deficit effect for pulse shape discrimination has been developed for CsI(Tl) scintillator + PIN photodiode charged-particle detectors. The method is theoretically investigated and it is shown that the figure of merit of the particle separation is mainly governed by the absolute value of the differential quotient of the rise time dependent ballistic deficit. As the actual particle discriminator contains shaping amplifiers, baseline restorer, pile-up rejector and analog-to-digital converters, it directly accepts signals from a charge-sensitive preamplifier, and its outputs deliver the type and the energy of the particles in the form of eight-bit digital codes. The performance of the particle discriminator is characterised by the figure-of-merit measured as a function of the particle energy.

Development of an Improved Detector Module for miniPET-II

We present a new detector module developed for miniPET-II, the second generation of the miniPET small animal PET scanners. The improved module features new hardware components for better performance: LySO crystal material, increased number of crystal segments, Hamamatsu H9500 PSPMT, Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA and Gigabit Ethernet. However, the principle of operation is the same: no hardware coincidence detection is implemented, data is acquired in list mode and transfered over an Ethernet network. The resulting new module is more suitable for full ring configurations.

Ethernet Based Distributed Data Acquisition System for a Small Animal PET

We report on the design of a small animal PET scanner being developed at our institutes. The existing setup is the first version of the miniPET machine consisting of four detector modules. Each detector module consists of an 8times8 LSO scintillator crystal block, a position sensitive photomultiplier, a digitizer including a digital signal processing board and an Ethernet interface board. There is no hardware coincidence detection implemented in the system and coincidence is determined based on a time stamp attached to every event by a digital CFD algorithm. The algorithm is implemented in the digital signal processing board and generates a time stamp with a coincidence resolution of less than 2 ns. The data acquisition system is based on Ethernet network and is highly scalable in size and performance

Realization of charge sensitive preamplifiers using current feedback operational amplifier

Abstract A simple charge sensitive preamplifier circuit has been designed, which uses a CFOPA. Despite its simplicity the preamplifier exhibits good noise and speed parameters.

A Promising Future: Comparable Imaging Capability of MRI-Compatible Silicon Photomultiplier and Conventional Photosensor Preclinical PET Systems

We recently completed construction of a small-animal PET system—the MiniPET-3—that uses state-of-the-art silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) photosensors, making possible dual-modality imaging with MRI. In this article, we compare the MiniPET-3 with the MiniPET-2, a system with the same crystal geometry but conventional photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). Methods: The standard measurements proposed by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association NU 4 protocols were performed on both systems. These measurements included spatial resolution, system sensitivity, energy resolution, counting rate performance, scatter fraction, spillover ratio for air and water, recovery coefficient, and image uniformity. The energy windows were set to 350–650 keV on the MiniPET-2 and 360–662 keV on the MiniPET-3. Results: Spatial resolution was approximately 17% better on average for the MiniPET-3 than the MiniPET-2. The systems performed similarly in terms of peak absolute sensitivity (∼1.37%), spillover ratio for air (∼0.15), spillover ratio for water (∼0.25), and recovery coefficient (∼0.33, 0.59, 0.81, 0.89, and 0.94). Uniformity was 5.59% for the MiniPET-2 and 6.49% for the MiniPET-3. Minor differences were found in scatter fraction. With the ratlike phantom, the peak noise-equivalent counting rate was 14 kcps on the MiniPET-2 but 24 kcps on the MiniPET-3. However, with the mouselike phantom, these values were 55 and 91 kcps, respectively. The optimal coincidence time window was 6 ns for the MiniPET-2 and 8 ns for the MiniPET-3. Conclusion: Images obtained with the SiPM-based MiniPET-3 small-animal PET system are similar in quality to those obtained with the conventional PMT-based MiniPET-2.

OPTIMIZATION OF THE PARTICLE DISCRIMINATOR BASED ON THE BALLISTIC DEFICIT METHOD USING DELAY-SWITCHED GATED INTEGRATOR

Abstract The particle discriminator we developed for CsI(Tl) elements of an ancillary detector array planned to be used together with large γ-ray detector systems utilizes the ballistic deficit effect for particle discrimination. This technique applies a low-ballistic-deficit long-time-constant unipolar semi-Gaussian shaper and a large-ballistic-deficit short-time-constant bipolar shaper. To match the signal processing time of our discriminator with that of the standard electronics for Ge detectors the long-time-constant semi-Gaussian shaper was substituted with the so-called delay-switched gated integrator. The experimental tests of the new arrangement show that the pulse processing time can be significantly shortened. The figure of merit of the particle discrimination improves with increasing the total integration time of the delay-switched gated integrator up to 12 μs, above which the improvement is negligible. Therefore, this 12 μs integration time is considered as a good compromise as for the figure of merit and the dead time of the new arrangement.

ON THE NOISE PERFORMANCE OF A NOVEL DELAY-SWITCHED GATED INTEGRATOR

Abstract For trapezoidal filtering, widely used for diminishing the harmful effect of the ballistic deficit, a modified version of the gated integrator is suggested. In this delay-switched gated integrator the true integration is delayed with respect to the beginning of the pulse, and for the delay period the true integration process is approximated with a low-pass filter. The paper theoretically compares the noise behavior of the delay-switched gated integrator and that of the gated integrator. The noise calculations are based on the concept of the step- and delta-noise residual functions and they are performed in three cases. In the first case the standalone shaping circuits are analyzed, in the second case they are preceded by a fast baseline restorer and in the third case they are preceded by a baseline restorer of finite time constant. It is shown that the novel delay-switched gated integrator preceded by a baseline restorer can be a good alternative to gated integrators.

Internals and evaluation of the miniPET-II detector module

We report on the architecture of the system-on- module (SoM) developed by our group for miniPET-II, the second version of our small animal PET scanner. The paper describes the hardware and software implementation details of the SoM we realized inside the miniPET-II detector module, the embedded Linux operation system, and the the initial results of bandwidth test measurements on the assembled SoM. Detailed description is given on the interfacing of the updated miniPET IP Core to the SoM, on the efficient data transfer method that implements device-to-device DMA transfer, and on the usage of User Datagram Protocol (UDP/IP) for high speed data transfer.