Accurate Simulation Testbench for Nuclear Imaging Systems

Abstract

Current testbenches for nuclear imaging devices aim to simulate only a single stage of the system at a time. This approach is useful in early design stages where accuracy is not necessary. However, it would be desirable that different tools could be combined to achieve more detailed simulations. In this work, a high precision testbench is presented. It has been developed to test nuclear imaging systems. Its accuracy lies in the possibility of linking different simulation tools using the right one for each part of the system. High energy events are simulated using Geant4 (High Energy Simulator). Analog and digital electronics are verified using SpectreVerilog or UltrasimVerilog (Cadence Design Syst. Inc., San Jose, CA, USA) and ModelSim (Mentor Graphics Corp, Wilsonville, OR, USA). This testbench structure can be used to test any physical topology, scintillation crystals, Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs), Avalanche Photodiodes (APDs), with any kind of ASIC, discrete analog and digital electronics, thus reducing the prototyping and design time. New system developments can be easily verified using behavioral and circuital description models for analog and digital electronics. Finally, a dual-head continuous LSO scintillation crystal Positron Emission Tomography (PET) system has been used as an example for evaluation of the testbench.Index Terms-Biomedical nuclear imaging, design methodology, positron emission tomography (PET), simulation, system analysis and design.

Evaluation of a timing integrated circuit architecture for continuous crystal and SiPM based PET systems

“…The simulation presented here is a mixed simulation that uses a Montecarlo Geant4 based simulator for the physics process and a spice based simulator (LTspice) for the electronic blocks [5]. All the simulation is controlled by Matlab.…”

High-precision position estimation in PET using artificial neural networks

“…The detector electronics were specifically designed for this application [11]. The analog part consists in an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC).…”

Estudio e implementación de algoritmos digitales para la mejora de la resolución temporal en sistemas de tomografía por emisión de positrones

“…Los discriminadores fueron analizados en una simulación desarrollada para dicha tarea y basada en una simulación que fue presentada en el trabajo [142]. Los resultados obtenidos en la simulación fueron posteriormente validados en el sistema PET desarrollado por el grupo de investigación, sistema basado en detectores LSO+PMT.…”

“…La simulación también permite aislar distintos procesos de forma controlada, hecho muchas veces difícil en un sistema real de medida, y de esta forma entender con mayor precisión los fenómenos que toman parte en un experimento. Para la evaluación de los algoritmos de tiempos, se propone una nueva metodología de simulación que se presentó en el artículo ((Accurate Simulation Testbench for Nuclear Imaging Systems)) [142].…”