Coding Scheme Optimization for Fast Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging

Abstract

Fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) is used for measuring material properties in a wide range of applications, including biology, medical imaging, chemistry, and material science. In frequency-domain FLIM (FD-FLIM), the object of interest is illuminated with a temporally modulated light source. The fluorescence lifetime is measured by computing the correlations of the emitted light with a demodulation function at the sensor. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the acquisition time of a FD-FLIM system is determined by the coding scheme (modulation and demodulation functions). In this article, we develop theory and algorithms for designing high-performance FD-FLIM coding schemes that can achieve high SNR and short acquisition time, given a fixed source power budget. Based on a geometric analysis of the image formation and noise model, we propose a novel surrogate objective for the performance of a given coding scheme. The surrogate objective is extremely fast to compute, and can be used to efficiently explore the entire space of coding schemes. Based on this objective, we design novel, high-performance coding schemes that achieve up to an order of magnitude shorter acquisition time as compared to existing approaches. We demonstrate the performance advantage of the proposed schemes in a variety of imaging conditions, using a modular hardware prototype that can implement various coding schemes.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jun 07, 2019
Source ID
10.1145/3325136

Entities

People

  • Abdul Kader Sagar
  • Andreas Velten
  • Bing Dai
  • Jenu Varghese Chacko
  • Jongho Lee
  • Kevin Eliceiri
  • Mohit Gupta
  • Syed Azer Reza

Organizations

  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Office of Naval Research
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computer Vision.
  • Electronics Engineering
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers

Technology Areas

  • Space