Investigation of Methods to Estimate Ultrasonic Attenuation of Soft Tissue

The paper deals with the analysis of methods for estimating the ultrasonic attenuation of soft tissue, which is modeled by the frequency function exp {-T(x) ·|f|ß}. Both frequency domain and time domain estimators are studied with respect to the inherent systematic error (bias). An expression of the decay of an ultrasonic reflected signal containing the properties of the transducer and the magnitude of the attenuation is derived. A close relation between the decay and the mean frequency of the reflected signal is found. The derivation of estimators in both the time and frequency domain is based on finding simple analytical approximations of the mean frequency.