A Flexible Open Source Electronics System for Radiotracer Imaging 14th International Conference on Accelerator & Large Experimental Physics Control Systems. Pre-conference Open Hardware Workshop, San Francisco, 10/06/2013 A Flexible Open Source Electronics System for Radiotracer Imaging Qiyu Peng (qpeng@lbl.gov) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Typical Camera Development Steps Idea for Detector / Camera Build Prototype It Works GREAT!!! Next Step — Full Camera Detector Scale-Up is Clear Electronics Scale-Up is Hard! Your Choice — Large Development Project or Lower-Performance System Our Community Needs Industrial-Strength Electronics!!!

Everybody Wins if We Pool Our Efforts Concept Nuclear Medicine Research Community Needs “Industrial Strength” Electronics Needs Can Be Met By a Single, Flexible Design! Heavy Use of FPGAs Highly Programmable Electronics Avoids Duplication of Effort By Sharing and Modifying Code, Community Everybody Wins if We Pool Our Efforts

OpenPET is the GATE of Nuclear Medical Imaging Electronics Vision Open Source Hardware, Firmware, and Software Schematics, Gerbers, BOM,… Standardized Architecture Compatible Alternate Hardware Software Readily Transportable Active User Community Share Software and Expertise Module, Calibration, DAQ, Display,… OpenPET is the GATE of Nuclear Medical Imaging Electronics

Like Open Source Software! Features High-Performance # of Channels, Rate, Energy, Timing, … Very Flexible Type of Detector, Camera Configuration, Event Word Definition User-Modifiable Schematics, Source Code, Knowledge Base User-Friendly Instructions, Documentation, Can Buy Boards Like Open Source Software!

… Architecture Coincidence Unit Up to 8 Detector Units USB-2 Detector Boards Coin. Interface Bd. Multiplexer Bds PC Interface … Up To Eight Detector Units, 1 Coincidence Unit Up to 2048 Analog Inputs (512 Block Detectors) PC Interface Board Connects to PC

Architecture Detector Unit USB-2 Detector Boards PC Interface Board 1 Support Crate, Up To Eight Detector Boards Up to 256 Analog Inputs (64 Block Detectors) PC Interface Board Connects to PC

Hardware Back View of the Support Crate Support Board 16-Ch Detector Board Power supply Back View of the Support Crate Rack Mountable Crate Host PC Interface User IO Debugging Front View of the Support Crate Hardware Assembly (small system)

Software

Software System configuration Data acquisition script Data analysis and visualization (flood map) Data analysis and visualization (Energy spectrum)

Documentation http://OpenPET.LBL.gov

https://github.com/openpet-developer Distribution http://OpenPET.LBL.gov https://github.com/openpet-developer

Challenges Open source software or hardware? --> Open source hardware is a new concept. --> DOE and LBNL don't know how to deal with it. --> “Open source”: the users can acquire and modify. --> In our case, we distribute all the information needed to manufacture the boards. The users will not be modifying the circuit boards. --> We are considered to be distributing open source software, not hardware.

Challenges Liability of hardware --> There are conventional ways that LBNL protects themselves from open source software, especially as other developers are likely to sign such agreements. --> The hardware board manufacturers are not likely to assume the liability. What happens if somebody uses this electronics to build a camera, that camera mis-diagnoses a patient, and the patient sues everybody under the sun (including LBNL)?

Challenges Intellectual property --> License agreement through access control Registration forms Source code license agreement

Challenges Starting and developing user community --> Documentation, forum, training videos, user meetings Source code version control (developers) --> GitHub with administration