Prototype design of singles processing unit for the small animal PET

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and testing of a prototype Singles Processing Unit for small animal PET systems, achieving high precision in charge, time, and position measurements to improve imaging quality.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel SPU prototype with optimized parameters, enhancing measurement precision for small animal PET imaging applications.

Findings

Charge precision better than 0.3% FWHM

Time precision better than 350 ps FWHM

Position resolution better than 0.35% FWHM

Abstract

Position Emission Tomography (PET) is an advanced clinical diagnostic imaging technique for nuclear medicine. Small animal PET is increasingly uesd for studying the animal model of disease, new drugs and new therapies. A prototype of Singles Processing Unit (SPU) for a small animal PET system was designed to obtain the time, energy, and position information. The energy and position is actually calculated through high precison charge measurement, which is based on amplification, shaping, A/D conversion and area calculation in digital signal processing domian. Analysis and simulations were also conducted to optimize the key parameters in system design. Initial tests indicate that the charge and time precision is better than 0.3% FWHM and 350 ps FWHM respectively, while the position resolution is better than 0.35% FWHM. Commination tests of the SPU prototype with the PET detector indicate that the system time precision is better than 2.5 ns, while the flood map and energy spectra concored well with the expected.