DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF AN ACQUISITION AND CONTROL-SYSTEM FOR A POSITRON CAMERA WITH NOVEL DETECTORS

A Sun-based data acquisition and control (DAQ) system has been designe d for PETRRA, a whole-body positron camera using novel large-area dete ctors. The DAQ system uses a high-speed digital I/O card (S16D) instal led on the SBus of a SPARC10 and a specially-designed Positron Camera Interface (PCI), which also controls the gantry and horizontal couch m otion. Data in the form of different types of 6-byte packets are acqui red in list mode. Tests with a signal generator show that the DAQ syst em should be able to accommodate coincidence count-rates up to 100 kcp s. The predicted count loss due to the DAQ system is similar to 13% at this count rate, provided asynchronous-read based software is used. T he list-mode data acquisition system designed for PETRRA could be adap ted for other 3D PET cameras with similar data rates, including dual-h eaded gamma cameras operating in coincidence mode.