Ultrasonic imaging research platform with GPU-based software focusing

We have designed and implemented an ultrasonic imaging research platform that performs all signal processing, including beamforming and image processing, using software on a GPU. An operating software is developed on a PC that can control RF data acquisition hardware to accommodate ultrasound images of various formats. Beamforming methods that include conventional scan line based imaging, scan line-based two-way dynamic focusing imaging, plane wave imaging, synthetic plane wave imaging, defocused transmission imaging, multi-beam scan line imaging, and color Doppler imaging are implemented by CUDA which runs on a GPU. Depending on the transmit and receive mode, a variety of experimental data acquisition conditions and various filter parameters can be changed in real time by a graphical user interface, and the RF data can be stored in a hard disk without a limit on the number of frames. Since the software for operation and signal processing can be flexibly changed, the developed system is a very useful research platform for ultrasound image acquisitions. We have used a GeForce GTX 980 (NVIDIA) desktop graphics card with a clock frequency of 1.126 GHz and 4 GB memory and a PC with an Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3-GHz CPU and a system memory of 16 GB under 64-bit Windows 7 along with an analog front-end capable of transmitting 128 channels and receiving 64 channels, obtaining images using a 5-MHz, 128-channel linear array probe.