Near-Field, Broadband Adaptive Beamforming for Ultrasound Imaging
Viola, F.
Ellis, M.A.
Walker, W.F.
Dept. of Biomed. Eng., Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA;
This paper appears in: Signals, Systems and Computers, 2006. ACSSC '06. Fortieth Asilomar Conference on
Publication Date: Oct. 29 2006-Nov. 1 2006
On page(s): 1543-1547
Location: Pacific Grove, CA,
ISSN: 1058-6393
ISBN: 1-4244-0784-2
INSPEC Accession Number: 10288544
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/ACSSC.2006.355017
Current Version Published: 2007-05-07
Abstract
For over fifty years adaptive beamforming (ABF) algorithms have been applied in RADAR and SONAR signal processing. These algorithms reduce the contribution of undesired off-axis signals while maintaining a desired response along a specific look direction. Typically, ABF achieves higher resolution and contrast than conventional beamforming (CBF), at the price of an increased computational load. In this paper we describe a novel ABF designed for medical ultrasound, named the time-domain optimized near-field estimator, or TONE. We performed a series of simulations using ultrasound data to test the performance of this algorithm and compare it to conventional, data independent, delay and sum beamforming. We also performed experiments using a Philips SONOS 5500. CBF was applied using the default parameters of the Philips scanner, whereas TONE was applied on single-channel, unfocused data with plane wave transmit. TONE images were reconstructed at a sampling of 67 mum laterally and 19 mum axially. The results obtained for a series of 5 20 mum wires in a water tank show a significant improvement in spatial resolution when compared to CBF. We also analyzed the performance of TONE as a function of speed of sound errors and array sparsity, finding TONE robust to both.
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