Boundary Array Transducer and Beamforming for Low-Cost Real-time 3D Imaging

Recent studies suggest that ultrasound can be used for serial monitoring to guide therapeutic interventions at the point of care. A low-cost 3-D imaging may be well suited for this application due to greater accuracy and reproducibility over 2-D imaging. Previous work on arrays and systems for 3D imaging have focused on either 2D array transducers, hardware, or software alone. In this work, a systems-based “ground up” approach to develop real-time 3D (RT3D) ultrasound is investigated and compared to a full-sampled array. A 3 MHz, 64 × 64 rectangular boundary array was simulated in Field II and compared to a fully-sampled array. To improve depth of penetration, coded excitation is used. Due to the sparseness of the RBA, novel apodization techniques are applied to suppress sidelobes and clutter.