CompTo-NM
Computed Tomography To Nuclear Medicine
Funded by: POR CREO FESR Toscana 2014-2020
Start date 1 February 2018 End date 14 March 2020
Keywords: Predictive maintenance; image quality estimation; hybrid diagnostic devices; neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular diseases
CompTo-NM is working to design, prototype and validate a hybrid diagnostic platform that integrates nuclear medicine sensors (Positron Emission Tomography - PET or Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography- SPECT) and Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) technology, into a single, compact, and transportable device that may serve clinical and pre-clinical investigations of brain anatomy and function. The ultimate goal is to create a high-performance device for the study of neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular disorders, whose epidemiological impact is constantly growing, especially in the western world, and is expected to become very significant in the coming few years, with an increase of social costs. Although, hybrid technology is already available in clinical practice, yet it is not optimized for the neck and encephalic zones, since consisting in full-body devices used in oncology (only 5% of these is dedicated to neuro-vascular diseases). A dedicated device may guarantee lower costs, reduced doses, decongestion of waiting lists and ease of use.
CompTo-NM moves in this direction, leveraging the technologies that enable the Industry 4.0 paradigm to support the design and development processes of the hybrid device and to implement its predictive maintenance. To this end, ISTI team is working to devise a physical-virtual platform to virtualize the components of the hybrid device and simulate their functioning. The platform will provide feedback of tests on real components, thus supporting design and maintenance activities. The corresponding cyber-physical framework maps the behaviours of the hybrid device in various use cases and validates its adherence to the theoretical models. By serving the monitoring, diagnosis and prognosis of the state of the device, this framework aims to optimise:
- the development phase, through a controlled, modular and reusable modelling of the production process
- the performance of the final device, in terms of reliability, maintainability, efficiency and safety, reducing maintenance costs and times and optimizing after-sales services
Role in the project
SI-Lab is working on the definition of data analytics methods to diagnose the status of the device components and enact predictive maintenance interventions. The lab team is also devising algorithms to assess the quality of both nuclear and tomographic images.
Project implementation period: 2018-2019
Project total budget: € 1.315.387,96
Budget of ISTI-CNR: € 170.560,96
Financial support received by ISTI-CNR: € 85.280,48
