Improving the spatial resolution of intravascular ultrasound imaging with synthetic aperture Fourier-based methods

Intravascular ultrasound imaging using a rotating transducer produces images which includes the Point Spread Function of the imaging system. It results a lack of spatial resolution for the images. After the modelization of the image formation, the authors take into account the characteristics of the PSF in order to suggest an original Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT). The authors propose a kernel for phase-only processing. Improvements in spatial resolution are shown on experimental results for the imaging of steel wires with an imaging system using a rotating transducer operating at 30 MHz.