Title :
An All-Digital Coincidence-Selection and Coincidence-Trigger Generation for a Small Animal RPC-PET Camera
Author :
Clemencio, Filomena M. C. ; Loureiro, Custodio F. M. ; Fonte, Paulo ; Landeck, Jorge
Author_Institution :
Escola Super. de Tecnol. da Saude do Porto-IPP, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal
Abstract :
The time resolution for gamma photon pairs of a detector based on resistive plate chamber technology is close to 300 ps FWHM. This allows a tight time window for coincidence detection, reducing the number of random coincidences observed and the overall noise of the acquired image. We implemented, inside a Xilinx Virtex-5 field programmable gate array, a fully programmable coincidence-trigger system with sub-nanosecond resolution and low latency for a small animal RPC-PET camera being built. An automatic procedure to construct a histogram of coincidences was implemented that helps characterizing the camera and allows compensating for different delays in the time channels. The time window for coincidences can then be placed at the optimal position helping to reject coincidences from undesired sources.
Keywords :
biomedical electronics; cameras; coincidence circuits; delays; edge detection; field programmable gate arrays; medical image processing; noise; positron emission tomography; FWHM; Xilinx Virtex-5 field programmable gate array; delay compensation; detector; digital coincidence selection; fully programmable coincidence-trigger system; gamma photon pair; histogram construction; image acquisition; noise; positron emission tomography; resistive plate chamber technology; small animal RPC-PET camera; subnanosecond resolution; time 300 ps; time channel; time window; Cameras; Clocks; Delays; Detectors; Field programmable gate arrays; Histograms; Positron emission tomography; Coincidence trigger; coincidence validation; resistive plate chamber–positron emission tomography (RPC-PET) camera;
Journal_Title :
Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TNS.2013.2273416