Implementation of a High-Rate USB Data Acquisition System for PET and SPECT Imaging

We made substantial progress with a flexible high-rate USB data acquisition system developed for gamma-ray imaging detectors. Hardware consists of 16-channel data acquisition modules installed on USB carrier boards. One, two, and four-module units were developed. USB data rate was increased to over 30 MB/s and a 16-channel configuration achieved a trigger rate of over 700 kHz. Several high-resolution single-gamma detectors and two high-rate PET detectors were instrumented. The detectors use various configurations of Hamamatsu H8500, H9500, and Burle 85002-800 PSPMTs. System channels were expanded by synchronizing additional acquisition units. A Java client-server system was developed to link acquisition computers over Gigabit Ethernet. A Kmax tool was developed to process and display images during acquisition. C and Java utilities were developed to assist development and diagnostics.