Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Pierre Gebhardt

Bjoern Weissler

Volkmar Schulz

Jacob Adrian Clemens Wehner

A combined-modality imaging assembly includes a Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging system and a nuclear imaging system. The nuclear imaging system has a plurality of (M) modules; and the combined imaging assembly includes a timing control unit having a reference clock unit; and at least one of a phase shifting unit and a frequency shifting unit. At least one of the phase shifting unit and the frequency shifting unit is configured to receive a reference clock signal from the reference clock unit and to generate a plurality of (M) shifted clock signals for clocking the (M) modules such that at least one of the (M) shifted clock signals is shifted respective the reference clock signal in at least one of frequency or phase. In so doing, reduced interference between the modules of the nuclear imaging system and the MR imaging system is obtained.

Reducing interference in a combined assembly for MRI and nuclear imaging

A detector module () for a positron emission tomography (PET) system () includes an optical transceiver () receiving an optical data stream from a PET processing system (). The data stream includes a pulse train carrying a command to generate sync/reset pulses. The system () further includes synchronization circuitry () configured to simultaneously jitter clean the pulse train and one of: 1) count the pulses of the pulse train; and 2) monitor the pulse train for a missing pulse. The synchronization circuitry () is further configured to, in response to counting a predetermined number of pulses or detecting the missing pulse, extract a jitter clean pulse from the pulse train to generate a jitter clean sync/reset pulse. The system () further includes an internal clock () which receives the jitter clean sync/reset pulse.

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Aachen, Germany

Pierre Gebhardt