scholarly journals Effects of Non-Elevation-Focalized Linear Array Transducer on Ultrasound Plane-Wave Imaging

Sensors ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 1906
Author(s):  
Congzhi Wang ◽  
Yang Xiao ◽  
Jingjing Xia ◽  
Weibao Qiu ◽  
Hairong Zheng
Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 640
Author(s):  
Yujia Tang ◽  
Zhangjian Li ◽  
Yaoyao Cui ◽  
Chen Yang ◽  
Jiabing Lv ◽  
...  

Ultrasound plane wave imaging technology has been applied to more clinical situations than ever before because of its rapid imaging speed and stable imaging quality. Most transducers used in plane wave imaging are linear arrays, but their structures limit the application of plane wave imaging technology in some special clinical situations, especially in the endoscopic environment. In the endoscopic environment, the size of the linear array transducer is strictly miniaturized, and the imaging range is also limited to the near field. Meanwhile, the near field of a micro linear array has serious mutual interferences between elements, which is against the imaging quality of near field. Therefore, we propose a new structure of a micro ultrasound linear array for plane wave imaging. In this paper, a theoretical comparison is given through sound field and imaging simulations. On the basis of primary work and laboratory technology, micro uniform and non-uniform linear arrays were made and experimented with the phantom setting. We selected appropriate evaluation parameters to verify the imaging results. Finally, we concluded that the micro non-uniform linear array eliminated the artifacts better than the micro uniform linear array without the additional use of signal processing methods, especially for target points in the near-field. We believe this study provides a possible solution for plane wave imaging in cramped environments like endoscopy.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 3660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nivaldo Schiefler ◽  
Joaquim Maia ◽  
Fabio Schneider ◽  
Acácio Zimbico ◽  
Amauri Assef ◽  
...  

Ultrasonic imaging is one of the most important techniques to help medical diagnosis. However, obtaining high quality images requires the acquisition, processing, and storage of a large amount of data. In this work, we evaluated a new ultrasound imaging technique based on plane wave and sparse arrays to increase the scan rate and reduce the amount of data amount to be stored. The performance of the proposed method was tested using simulated echo data (from Field II) and phantom data acquired using a Verasonics system equipped with a L11-4v linear array transducer. The tests were done using 128 elements for transmission and 128, 65, 44, and 23 elements sparsely distributed for reception. The simulated data were compared with images obtained with the Delay and Sum (DAS) method and the experimental data were compared with those acquired from Verasonics. The obtained results using the Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) criteria at −6 dB showed that the images generated by the proposed method were similar in terms of resolutions (axial and lateral) and contrast to the simulated and the Verasonics commercial ones, indicating that the sparse reception proposed method is suitable for ultrasound imaging.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (19) ◽  
pp. 5675
Author(s):  
Sua Bae ◽  
Jintae Jang ◽  
Moon Hyung Choi ◽  
Tai-Kyong Song

Although plane wave imaging (PWI) has been extensively employed for ultrafast ultrasound imaging, its potential for sectorial B-mode imaging with a convex array transducer has not yet been widely recognized. Recently, we reported an optimized PWI approach for sector scanning that exploits the dynamic transmit focusing capability. In this paper, we first report the clinical applicability of the optimized PWI for abdominal ultrasonography by in vivo image and video evaluations and compare it with conventional focusing (CF) and diverging wave imaging (DWI), which is another dynamic transmit focusing technique generally used for sectorial imaging. In vivo images and videos of the liver, kidney, and gallbladder were obtained from 30 healthy volunteers using PWI, DWI, and CF. Three radiologists assessed the phantom images, 156 in vivo images, and 66 in vivo videos. PWI showed significantly enhanced (p < 0.05) spatial resolution, contrast, and noise and artifact reduction, and a 4-fold higher acquisition rate compared to CF and provided similar performances compared to DWI. Because the computations required for PWI are considerably lower than that for DWI, PWI may represent a promising technique for sectorial imaging in abdominal ultrasonography that provides better image quality and eliminates the need for focal depth adjustment.


Author(s):  
Guangzhi Dai ◽  
Zhiyong He ◽  
Hongwei Sun

Background: This study is carried out targeting the problem of slow response time and performance degradation of imaging system caused by large data of medical ultrasonic imaging. In view of the advantages of CS, it is applied to medical ultrasonic imaging to solve the above problems. Objective: Under the condition of satisfying the speed of ultrasound imaging, the quality of imaging can be further improved to provide the basis for accurate medical diagnosis. Methods: According to CS theory and the characteristics of the array ultrasonic imaging system, block compressed sensing ultrasonic imaging algorithm is proposed based on wavelet sparse representation. Results: Three kinds of observation matrices have been designed on the basis of the proposed algorithm, which can be selected to reduce the number of the linear array channels and the complexity of the ultrasonic imaging system to some extent. Conclusion: The corresponding simulation program is designed, and the result shows that this algorithm can greatly reduce the total data amount required by imaging and the number of data channels required for linear array transducer to receive data. The imaging effect has been greatly improved compared with that of the spatial frequency domain sparse algorithm.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 4967
Author(s):  
Guillermo Cosarinsky ◽  
Jorge F. Cruza ◽  
Jorge Camacho

Plane Wave Imaging (PWI) has been recently proposed for fast ultrasound inspections in the Non-Destructive-Testing (NDT) field. By using a single (or a reduced number) of plane wave emissions and parallel beamforming in reception, frame rates of hundreds to thousands of images per second can be achieved without significant image quality losses with regard to the Total Focusing Method (TFM) or Phased Array (PA). This work addresses the problem of applying PWI in the presence of arbitrarily shaped interfaces, which is a common problem in NDT. First, the mathematical formulation for generating a plane wave inside a component of arbitrary geometry is given, and the characteristics of the resultant acoustic field are analyzed by simulation, showing plane wavefronts with non-uniform amplitude. Then, an imaging strategy is proposed, accounting for this amplitude effect. Finally, the proposed method is experimentally validated, and its application limits are discussed.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (14) ◽  
pp. 4856
Author(s):  
Che-Chou Shen ◽  
Yen-Chen Chu

Conventional ultrasonic coherent plane-wave (PW) compounding corresponds to Delay-and-Sum (DAS) beamforming of low-resolution images from distinct PW transmit angles. Nonetheless, the trade-off between the level of clutter artifacts and the number of PW transmit angle may compromise the image quality in ultrafast acquisition. Delay-Multiply-and-Sum (DMAS) beamforming in the dimension of PW transmit angle is capable of suppressing clutter interference and is readily compatible with the conventional method. In DMAS, a tunable p value is used to modulate the signal coherence estimated from the low-resolution images to produce the final high-resolution output and does not require huge memory allocation to record all the received channel data in multi-angle PW imaging. In this study, DMAS beamforming is used to construct a novel coherence-based power Doppler detection together with the complementary subset transmit (CST) technique to further reduce the noise level. For p = 2.0 as an example, simulation results indicate that the DMAS beamforming alone can improve the Doppler SNR by 8.2 dB compared to DAS counterpart. Another 6-dB increase in Doppler SNR can be further obtained when the CST technique is combined with DMAS beamforming with sufficient ensemble averaging. The CST technique can also be performed with DAS beamforming, though the improvement in Doppler SNR and CNR is relatively minor. Experimental results also agree with the simulations. Nonetheless, since the DMAS beamforming involves multiplicative operation, clutter filtering in the ensemble direction has to be performed on the low-resolution images before DMAS to remove the stationary tissue without coupling from the flow signal.


Author(s):  
Bruno-Felix Osmanski ◽  
Gabriel Montaldo ◽  
Jeremy Bercoff ◽  
Thanasis Loupas ◽  
Mathias Fink ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Kazuhiro Tochigi ◽  
Ryo Nagaoka ◽  
Jens Erik Wilhjelm ◽  
Hideyuki Hasegawa

Abstract In the early stage of atherosclerosis, the luminal surface of the arterial wall becomes rough. Methods for distinguishing between the reflected and backscattered components in the ultrasonic echo from the arterial wall has the potential to be used as a method for assessment of the roughness of the arterial wall. In this study, we proposed a method to distinguish between the reflected and backscattered components using a technique based on plane wave compounding. This method was evaluated by experiments using planar phantoms with rough surfaces made of polyurethane rubber. The coefficient of variation calculated from the mean value of the reflection component and the standard deviation of the backscattering component was proportional to the roughness of the rubber phantom. This result shows the potential usefulness of this method for analyzing surface roughness of the arterial wall.


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