Firmware and software framework of OpenPET electronics system for radiotracer imaging

The purpose of OpenPET project is to develop open source high-performance electronics for radiotracer imaging. We have developed OpenPET hardware electronics that mainly includes three custom electronics modules: the detector board (DB), the support board (SB), and the multiplexor board (MB). A reliable, scalable, flexible and user-friendly firmware and software frame need to be built to support the OpenPET hardware electronics. We adapted a firmware and software architecture that configures the OpenPET hardware electronics into a computer network with a tree topology. A data structure commonly used in reconfigurable computer networks are adapted and implemented to manage the hardware resources in the system, configure and calibrate the system, and control event data acquisition. The results of system test show that the firmware and software framework is a reliable, scalable and flexible platform for OpenPET system configuration, management, calibration, event data acquisition and processing.