An Angular Framework for the Separation of Single and Multiple Scattering

We study the single scattering and the multiple scattering regimes of ultrasonic waves. Using an angular framework, which relies on the use of plane waves in transmit and in receive, we build an interangle matrix that gathers signals according to their transmission and reception directions. We demonstrate that the anti-diagonals of this matrix are constant in the single scattering regime, and exploit this property to design a simple method that separates single scattering from multiple scattering. We show that this technique is able to efficiently quantify noise and multiple scattering in simulations, and yields realistic estimations of the multiple scattering intensity on an in vivo acquisition.