Design of a Modular and Efficient CAMAC/Lab VIEW-Based Data Acquisition System for a Time of Flight PET Test-Bed

A high-speed data acquisition (DAQ) system has been designed for a time of flight PET test-bed. The requirements of the system were flexibility, data throughput and data integrity. The software is modular so that modifications and additions can be integrated easily into the existing software architecture. The program operation is driven by commands read from a script file, simplifying implementation of complex acquisition sequences. The heart of the program is the DAQ module, which efficiently transfers data from CAMAC to file. Another software module offers online or offline analysis capabilities. The software, written in LabVIEW, communicates with a novel high-speed USB2 CAMAC controller (CCUSB). The CCUSB offers significant improvements over its GPIB predecessor, supporting FIFO buffered DAQ and a variety of data readout modes. Four readout modes have been evaluated in order to maximize the DAQ rate for this particular system. A highest sustained data rate of 15.7 k events/s was achieved for approximately 60 input channels using a ²²Na flood phantom. Flexibility in the software design accommodates both current and future hardware configurations without the need to edit the LabVIEW code.