Aperture Domain Model Image REconstruction (ADMIRE) for improved ultrasound imaging

In some patients, clinical ultrasound produces beautiful images, while in other patients the images are unusable. This wide variability in outcomes exists for all standard beamformers ranging from delay-and-sum to adaptive methods like the MVDR beamformer. We have demonstrated that a model based approach called Aperture Domain Model Image reconstruction (ADMIRE) consistently improves image quality. ADMIRE works by explicitly accounting for various types of clutter. The algorithm preserves the quality of the best images and produces 10-20 dB improvements in low-quality images. Here we present results related to beamforming in the presence of multipath scattering-or reverberation-clutter. In the presence of this type of clutter canonical apodization methods fail to improve image quality, but by applying ADMIRE first the expected improvements from apodization can be restored.