低资源消耗型多电压阈值采样的能量表征方法

Energy Characterization Method of Resource-efficient Multiple Voltage Thresholds Sampling

  • 摘要: 准确获取脉冲能量信息在原子能核技术领域至关重要,现有脉冲能量表征方法中,多电压阈值(multiple voltage thresholds,MVT)采样方法通过引入脉冲信号的先验信息,结合过阈值时间信息,可在不对脉冲信号进行额外硬件处理的情况下完成波形重建进而获得能量信息,其具有较高的计数率,目前已成功应用于石油测井、医疗成像等领域。然而现有的MVT采样方法在时间采样的实现过程中,每路阈值均需一路独立的时间数字转换(time-to-digital converter,TDC)单元;而一路TDC所需要的硬件资源较多,在多通道场景下其带来的功耗和成本为系统的搭建引入挑战。为此,本文提出了一种低资源消耗型能量表征方法REMVT(resource efficient MVT)。REMVT利用不同阈值被触发的时间不同,且有严格的先后顺序这一特点,将时间信息通过一条TDC链记录,不同阈值对应的触发信号被连到一个组合电路。该组合电路消耗极少的硬件资源,能在每个触发信号到来时将信号电平翻转。通过这种方式,不同阈值下的触发时间与信号的边沿一一对应。通过解调这些信号边沿的间隔即可完成波形重建或能量表征。通过这种时间复用链技术,极大降低资源的消耗,如在4/8阈值的配置中,资源消耗将降低75%/87.5%。另外,这种时间复用链技术降低了原来采用多链时的差异性,使得时间测量的抖动减小,因而波形重建的效果更优。相比MVT,该技术在使用更少资源的条件下将脉冲能量表征误差在20.5%内的事件占比由72%提升至79%;通过该技术,在正电子发射断层成像场景中进行了测试,获得了13.2%@511 keV的能量分辨率,与高采样率通用示波器的能量表征结果相比,仅1.1%的差距。此外,本文提出了一种针对REMVT的事件检测与脉冲堆叠还原算法。该算法充分利用脉冲信号的先验信息,即不同阈值被触发的先后顺序与时间间隔来完成对脉冲事件的可靠检测与堆叠事件的准确还原。实验结果表明,93%的脉冲堆叠事件被完整还原。

     

    Abstract: Accurate acquisition of pulse energy is very important in the field of atomic energy technology. In the existing energy characterization methods, the multiple voltage thresholds (MVT) sampling method introduces prior information of pulse signals and combines it with trigger times from multiple reference voltages to achieve direct energy characterization, without any pulse shaping techniques. It involves no extra hardware components and has high count rate, rendering it applicable for a range of applications, including oil detection, medical imaging, etc. However, in conventional MVT sampling process, to record trigger times from one reference voltage threshold would consume one time-to-digital converters (TDC) unit. Since a TDC unit is not resource friendly, it would be notable challenging to apply this strategy in a multi-channel scenario, due to the increased power and cost. To address this, a resource-efficient multiple voltage thresholds (REMVT) sampling method was proposed. REMVT harnesses the fact that trigger times from each reference voltage appear sequentially and at a particular order, making it possible to record all of them using only a single TDC unit. To achieve this, the trigger signaling from each reference threshold voltage was routed together and fed to a combinatorial logic circuit. This logic circuit consumes few resources and can alter signal levels if an effective signaling arrive. By this means, the trigger times from each reference voltage were sequentially mapped to different edges. Deciphering interval between these edges would generate sufficient information for pulse reconstruction and hence energy characterization. This “TDC chain reuse” technique significantly reduces resource consumption. For example, in a configuration with 4/8 thresholds, resource consumption is reduced by 75%/87.5%. Additionally, this chain reuse technique reduces measurement variations from using multiple chains, leading to fewer jitters in time measurement and, consequently, better energy characterization performance. With REMVT, the energy characterization errors of 79% pulses are within 20.5%. While with MVT, this value reduces to 72%. Using this REMVT, an energy resolution of 13.2% for 511 keV can be obtained under practical experiment conditions, which is only 1.1% worse than the results obtained from a general high-speed oscilloscope. In addition, a new event detection and pileup event recovery algorithm was proposed in this paper. This algorithm fully exploits the prior information of pulses, namely the sequential order of each trigger time and the respective interval among them, to accomplish reliable event detection and accurate pileup event recovery. Results demonstrate that 93% pileup events can be identified and recovered.

     

/

返回文章
返回