FPGA-based Real-Time Data Acquisition for Ultrafast X-Ray Computed Tomography (original) (raw)

An ultra fast electron beam x-ray tomography scanner

Measurement Science and Technology, 2008

This paper introduces the design of an ultra fast x-ray tomography scanner based on electron beam technology. The scanner has been developed for two-phase flow studies where frame rates of 1 kHz and higher are required. Its functional principle is similar to that of the electron beam x-ray CT scanners used in cardiac imaging. Thus, the scanner comprises an electron beam generator with a fast beam deflection unit, a semicircular x-ray production target made of tungsten alloy and a circular x-ray detector consisting of 240 CZT elements with 1.5 mm × 1.5 mm × 1.5 mm size each. The design is optimized with respect to ultra fast imaging of smaller flow vessels, such as pipes or laboratory-scale chemical reactors. In that way, the scanner is capable of scanning flow cross-sections at a speed of a few thousand frames per second which is sufficient to capture flows of a few meters per second velocity.

Multichannel FPGA-Based Data-Acquisition-System for Time-Resolved Synchrotron Radiation Experiments

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2017

The aim of this contribution is to describe our recent development of a novel compact FPGA-based data acquisition system for use with multi-channel X-ray detectors at synchrotron radiation facilities. The system is designed for time resolved counting of single photons arriving from severalcurrently 12-independent detector channels simultaneously. Detector signals of at least 2.8 ns duration are latched by asynchronous logic and then synchronized with the system clock of 100 MHz. The incoming signals are subsequently sorted out into 10000 time-bins where they are counted. This occurs according to the arrival time of photons with respect to the trigger signal. Repeatable mode of triggered operation is used to achieve high statistic of accumulated counts. The time-bin width is adjustable from 10 ns to 1 ms. In addition, a special mode of operation with 2 ns time resolution is provided for two detector channels. The system is implemented in a pocket-size FPGAbased hardware of 10 cm x 10 cm x 3 cm and thus can easily be transported between synchrotron radiation facilities. For setup of operation and data read-out the hardware is connected via USB interface to a portable control computer. Data acquisition applications are provided in both LabVIEW® and MATLAB® environments.

Real-Time X-ray tomosynthesis imaging using an ATCA general-purpose data acquisition and analysis platform

Ieee Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record Nuclear Science Symposium, 2008

We describe a Data Acquisition and Analysis Platform (DAAP) based on the ATCA specification. The DAAP was designed for use in a multi-plane tomosynthesis X-ray imaging system but its architecture was generalized to support wide range of data acquisition, routing, and processing applications. X-ray data from a remote sensor is transferred via a 75Gbps fiber link to the DAAP. Within the DAAP data is distributed through a dual-star data plane using a switched PCIe fabric and analyzed within a three-tier processing architecture. Data may be broadcast in parallel to multiple analysis modules and can be archived in real-time to an external archiving module. Five massively parallel Data Processors provide up to 48 TOps/s of programmable processing capacity. Several FPGAbased pipelined processors provide additional processing capability for pre-and post-processing functions. Any processing module can uplink results to an external host computer via Gigabit Ethernet. An FPGA-based synchronization module provides multiple fiber-optic links that can provide synchronization or masterclocking to external subsystems. The control plane for the ATCA chassis utilizes 1000-base-T. In addition to the data processing elements each module incorporates a PowerPC processor for local configuration management and control. I. INTRODUCTION A. Scanning-Beam Digital X-ray Solomon, et al. [1] describe a Scanning Beam Digital X-ray system designed for real-time cardiac imaging. In such a system X-rays are captured using a high-resolution 2dimensional detector at a high sample rate synchronous with the scanning beam, then reconstructed using tomographic back-projection to create images of discretely spaced focalplanes within the imaging volume. Fig. 1 shows the general structure and function of an SBDX system. All focal-planes are reconstructed from the same underlying X-ray data set, and

Control concepts for image-based structure tracking with ultrafast electron beam X-ray tomography

Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control

In this paper, a novel approach for tracking moving structures in multiphase flows over larger axial ranges is presented, which at the same time allows imaging the tracked structures and their environment. For this purpose, ultrafast electron beam X-ray computed tomography (UFXCT) is being extended by an image-based position control. Application is scanning and tracking of, for example, bubbles, particles, waves and other features of multiphase flows within vessels and pipes. Therefore, the scanner has to be automatically traversed with the moving structure basing on real-time scanning, image reconstruction and image data processing. In this paper, requirements and different strategies for reliable object tracking in dual image plane imaging mode are discussed. Promising tracking strategies have been numerically implemented and evaluated.

Hardware Optimizations of the X-ray Pre-Processing for Interventional Computed Tomography Using the FPGA

Applied Sciences

In computed tomography imaging, the computationally intensive tasks are the pre-processing of 2D detector data to generate total attenuation or line integral projections and the reconstruction of the 3D volume from the projections. This paper proposes the optimization of the X-ray pre-processing to compute total attenuation projections by avoiding the intermediate step to convert detector data to intensity images. In addition, to fulfill the real-time requirements, we design a configurable hardware architecture for data acquisition systems on FPGAs, with the goal to have a “on-the-fly” pre-processing of 2D projections. Finally, this architecture was configured for exploring and analyzing different arithmetic representations, such as floating-point and fixed-point data formats. This design space exploration has allowed us to find the best representation and data format that minimize execution time and hardware costs, while not affecting image quality. Furthermore, the proposed archit...

FPGA-Based Real-Time Image Manipulation and Advanced Data Acquisition for 2-D-XRAY Detectors

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2021

Scientific experiments rely on some type of measurements that provides the required data to extract aimed information or conclusions. Data production and analysis are therefore essential components at the heart of any scientific experimental application. Traditionally, efforts on detector development for photon sources have focused on the properties and performance of the detection front-ends. In many cases, the data acquisition chain as well as data processing, are treated as a complementary component of the detector system and added at a late stage of the project. In most of the cases, data processing tasks are entrusted to CPUs; achieving thus the minimum bandwidth requirements and kept hardware relatively simple in term of functionalities. This also minimizes design effort, complexity and implementation cost. This approach is changing in the last years as it does not fit new high-performance detectors; FPGA and GPUs are now used to perform complex image manipulation tasks such as image reconstruction, image rotation, accumulation, filtering, data analysis and many others. This frees up CPUs for simpler tasks. The objective of this paper is to present both the implementation of real time FPGA-based image manipulation techniques, as well as, the performance of the ESRF data acquisition platform called RASHPA, into the back-end board of the SMARTPIX photon-counting detector developed at the ESRF.

GigaFRoST: the gigabit fast readout system for tomography

Journal of Synchrotron Radiation

Owing to recent developments in CMOS technology, it is now possible to exploit tomographic microscopy at third-generation synchrotron facilities with unprecedented speeds. Despite this rapid technical progress, one crucial limitation for the investigation of realistic dynamic systems has remained: a generally short total acquisition time at high frame rates due to the limited internal memory of available detectors. To address and solve this shortcoming, a new detection and readout system, coined GigaFRoST, has been developed based on a commercial CMOS sensor, acquiring and streaming data continuously at 7.7 GB s−1 directly to a dedicated backend server. This architecture allows for dynamic data pre-processing as well as data reduction, an increasingly indispensable step considering the vast amounts of data acquired in typical fast tomographic experiments at synchrotron beamlines (up to several tens of TByte per day of raw data).

A Smart Multi-Plane Detector Design for Ultrafast Electron Beam X-ray Computed Tomography

Sensors

In this paper, a smart detector design for novel multi-plane ultrafast electron beam X-ray computed tomography is presented. The concept is based on multi-plane electron beam scanning on a transparent X-ray target and elongated cuboid-shape scintillation detectors for radiation detection over an extended axial scanning range. The optical part of the scintillation detector acts as both an X-ray sensitive scintillator with a fast time response and a light guide. With that, we reduce detector complexity, number of detector elements, overall power consumption, and detector costs. We investigated the performance of this new multi-plane detector design with an evaluation detector setup that is made of cerium doped lutetium yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO:Ce) as scintillation material and an avalanche photodiode (APD) array. Thereby, we assessed two design variants: A monolithic LYSO bar detector and a sandwich detector made of multiple LYSO crystals and glass light-guides. Both types revea...

Status of the Ultra Fast Tomography Experiments Control at ANKA

X-ray imaging permits to spatially resolve the 2D and 3D structure in materials and organisms, which is crucial for the understanding of their properties. Additional temporal resolution of structure evolution gives access to dynamics of processes and allows to understand functionality of devices and organisms with the goal to optimize technological processes. Such time-resolved dynamic analysis of micro-sized structures is now possible by aid of ultrafast tomography, as being developed at the TopoTomo beamline of the synchrotron light source ANKA.