The application of k-space in medical ultrasound

K-space is a frequency domain description of ultrasonic imaging systems and targets which can be used to gain insight into their interaction during image formation. Although originally proposed as a technique for the analysis of imaging problems involving anisotropic scattering, the authors have found it useful as a general analysis tool. They present analytical and conceptual techniques for estimating the k-space representation of imaging systems with arbitrary transmit and receive array geometries and apodizations. The authors describe simple graphical methods of estimating the first and second order characteristics of speckle formed using different imaging geometries. They also present examples utilizing k-space to gain intuition about the performance of spatial and frequency compounding and to describe the impact of several synthetic aperture geometries on beam forming and speckle statistics. The authors present the Van Cittert Zernike Theorem in k-space and discuss techniques which can be used to improve echo correlation.