Siemens Medical Solutions Usa, Inc.

Other

University of Tennessee Research Foundation

Southern Methodist University

Dongming Hu

Matthias J Schmand

Ziad Burbar

Stefan B Siegel

Radovan Kovacevic

Mark W Lenox

Michael E Valant

Blake Atkins

Dustin R Osborne

Sang Hyeb Lee

A hybrid manufacturing apparatus utilizing both additive and subtractive manufacturing processes has a cutting mechanism, a magazine, and a deposition nozzle. A cutting mechanism engages and modifies material fed from a magazine, the finished material of this process to be positioned by a deposition nozzle. More specifically, the cutting mechanism provides a chamber supporting an inlet, an outlet, and at least one cutting head. The inlet receives fresh material, the cutting head is positioned within the chamber to create the desired contours in or on the material, and the material then exits the chamber via the outlet to be deposited according to instructions extracted from a digital model in a form of numerical control (NC) programming language. This model is natively subdivided into individual constructs each defining a set of values to guide creation of corresponding physical sections, and the placement thereof.

Hybrid manufacturing apparatus

Systems and methods for correcting motion during medical imaging involve using a detector to track annihilation photons produced by one of (i) external emitting sources placed onto a body of a person being imaged or (ii) an object of interest in the body. Motion information is generated based on the tracking. A motion-corrected image is formed from recorded image data, using the motion information.

Motion correction for PET medical imaging based on tracking of annihilation photons

An apparatus and method to increase the sensitivity at the edge of radiation detector blocks is disclosed herein. Reduced sensitivity can result from photons entering a first detector block, escaping, and scattering into an adjacent detector, thereby depositing energy into two detectors blocks. Energy lost into adjacent detector blocks can be compensated with energy detected in the adjacent detector block. This can be done, for example, by processing channels from multiple detector blocks with one Field Programmable Gated Array (FPGA) on one Event Process Module (EPM) board. This can enable summing energy of one detector block with energy from an adjacent detector block when the initial interaction occurs at the edge of the first detector block. This can result in a better estimate of the amount of energy associated with the initial photon being detected.

Increasing edge sensitivity in a radiation detector

The present invention provides a method of real-time crystal peak tracking for avalanche-photodiode (APD) detectors on positron emission tomography (PET) scanners that satisfies the need to compensate for the significant gain drifting due to thermal variations in APD detectors on PET scanners.

Method of real-time crystal peak tracking for positron emission tomography (PET) avalanche-photodiodes (APD) detector

A method, process and apparatus for compensating for changes to the gain of photo detectors in a nuclear imaging apparatus is disclosed. Specifically, embodiments detect positron annihilation event pulses using photo detectors. Changes to the gain of the photo detectors are compensated for by determining the relationship of a detected event pulse peak with a target event pulse peak. Based on the difference between these two peaks, a corrected gain is determined in a closed-loop control system. The corrected gain can be used to compensate for temperature changes that can affect the gain of the photo detectors.

Real-time gain compensation for photo detectors based on energy peak detection

A crystal lookup table used to define a matching relationship between a signal position of a detected event in a PET scanner and a corresponding detector pixel location is generated using a neural network-based algorithm, and is implemented by a FPGA.

Crystal lookup table generation using neural network-based algorithm

According to one embodiment of the invention, a method for controlling the size of the molten pool in a laser based additive manufacturing process includes coaxially aligning an imaging device with a laser nozzle and imaging a molten pool, created by a laser, on a substrate with the imaging device. The method further includes comparing at least one characteristic of the molten pool with a respective characteristic of a target molten pool, and adjusting, in substantially real-time, a laser power of the laser based on the comparison in order to correlate the characteristic of the molten pool with the respective characteristic of the target molten pool.

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Knoxville, TN, United States of America

Dongming Hu