Improving plane wave ultrasound imaging through real-time beamformation across multiple arrays
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Ultrasound imaging is a widely used diagnostic tool but has limitations in the imaging of deep lesions or obese patients where the large depth to aperture size ratio (f-number) reduces image quality. Reducing the f-number can improve image quality, and in this work, we combined three commercial arrays to create a large imaging aperture of 100 mm and 384 elements. To maintain the frame rate given the large number of elements, plane wave imaging was implemented with all three arrays transmitting a coherent wavefront. On wire targets at a depth of 100 mm, the lateral resolution is significantly improved; the lateral resolution was 1.27 mm with one array (1/3 of the aperture) and 0.37 mm with the full aperture. After creating virtual receiving elements to fill the inter-array gaps, an autoregressive filter reduced the grating lobes originating from the inter-array gaps by - 5.2 dB. On a calibrated commercial phantom, the extended field-of-view and improved spatial resolution were verified. The large aperture facilitates aberration correction using a singular value decomposition-based beamformer. Finally, after approval of the Stanford Institutional Review Board, the three-array configuration was applied in imaging the liver of a volunteer, validating the potential for enhanced resolution.
Source: Scientific Reports
Institution: Stanford University
Language: English
Subfield: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,190
Awards: Large aperture and wideband modular ultrasound arrays for the diagnosis of liver cancer, Insonation of ultrasound microbubbles at low frequency to enhance image-guided therapy, High Resolution Ultrasound in Interventional Radiology, Quantitative volumetric ultrasonic and photoacoustic tomography
OpenAlex ID: W4289755018