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Nonuniform Gain Correction Based on the Filtered Gain Map in Radiography Image Detectors

방사선 영상 디텍터에서 필터링된 이득지도를 사용한 불균일 이득 잡음의 보정

  • 김동식 (한국외국어대학교 전자공학과)
  • Received : 2015.11.08
  • Accepted : 2016.03.29
  • Published : 2016.04.25

Abstract

Radiography image detector produces digital images by collecting the charges from the incident x-ray photons and converting it to the voltage signals and then the digital signals. The fixed-pattern noise from the nonuinform amplifier gains in the employed multiple readout circuits. In order to correct the nonuniform gains, a gain-correction technique which is based on the gain map is conventionally used. Since the photon noise remains in the designed gain map, the noise contaminates the gain-corrected images. In this paper, experimental observations are conducted for filtering the remained noise in the gain map, and a filter optimization algorithm is proposed to efficiently remove the noise. For acquired x-ray images from detectors, the filtered gain maps are evaluated and it is shown that optimization algorithm can improve the filtering performance even for relatively strong fixed-pattern noises, which cannot be removed by a simple filter.

방사선 영상 디텍터는 x선 광자로부터 생성된 전하를 수집하여 다수의 전하증폭기 회로를 사용하여 전압 신호로 바꾼 뒤 이를 디지털 신호로 바꾸어 디지털 영상을 생성한다. 이때 다수로 사용한 회로의 불균일한 특성으로 인하여 이득의 불균일이라는 고정형태잡음이 발생한다. 이를 제거하기 위하여 이득지도를 사용하는 이득 보정 알고리듬이 일반적으로 사용되는데, 이득지도 설계 시에 광자 잡음이 이득지도에 남게 되고 이 잡음은 이득 보정된 영상을 오염시킨다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 남아있는 잡음을 필터를 사용하여 제거하는 실험을 하였으며, 효율적으로 잡음을 제거하기위한 필터를 최적화하는 알고리듬을 제안하였다. 실제 디텍터로 획득한 영상에 대하여 실험을 수행하여, 단순한 필터로 제거하기 힘든, 고정형태잡음의 크기가 상대적으로 큰 경우에도, 필터 최적화 알고리듬을 사용하여 효율적으로 잡음 제거에 대한 성능을 개선시킬 수 있음을 보였다.

Keywords

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