A feature point identification method for positron emission particle tracking with multiple tracers

A novel detection algorithm for Positron Emission Particle Tracking (PEPT) with multiple tracers based on optical feature point identification (FPI) methods is presented. This new method, the FPI method, is compared to a previous multiple PEPT method via analyses of experimental and simulated data. The FPI method outperforms the older method in cases of large particle numbers and fine time resolution. Simulated data show the FPI method to be capable of identifying 100 particles at 0.5 mm average spatial error. Detection error is seen to vary with the inverse square root of the number of lines of response (LORs) used for detection and increases as particle separation decreases.