Optimizing simultaneous multispectral emission photoacoustics

Several multispectral photoacoustic imaging methods employ systems that allow for simultaneous use of multiple laser wavelengths. This allows forming of a higher SNR image by combining the wavelengths, while simultaneously extracting single wavelength information. An optimization strategy for a given acquisition protocol exists, but it is still necessary to optimize the acquisition protocol. This leads to a problem known as the multi-objective nonlinear Knapsack problem, which can be solved analytically for special cases or numerically for small problem sizes. In this paper, we present optimization strategies to improve SNR. Optimization is performed for four different optimization constraints: For each, an algorithm is described to obtain the optimal acquisition scheme.