Abstract
We present a new spatial compounding method to improve the contrast of ultrasonic images for non-delayed sequential beamforming (NDSB). Sequential beamforming adopts more than one beamformer to reconstruct B-mode images which has the advantage of simple front-end electronics and fast data transfer rate. Via field pattern analysis, we propose a compounding method where two more sub-images can be reconstructed along with the NDSB sub-image. These sub-images can be seen as being produced with different transmit origins; thus, their summation enhances image contrast. Image quality was analyzed in terms of spatial resolution, contrast ratio (CR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). The proposed compounding method improves the lateral resolution up to 41%. In vitro results confirm a 13.0-dB CR and 4.0-dB CNR improvement. In vivo results reveal 10.9-dB and 6.0-dB improvement in CR and CNR for cross-section jugular vein and 8.0-dB and 4.5-dB improvement in CR and CNR for the longitudinal-section carotid artery.
Highlights
Synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) was first introduced for the singleelement transducer
Non-delayed sequential beamforming introduced in [13] proposes a new dual-stage beamformer
2.2. sPoruenssdu. rTeoFreieclodnsAtrnuaclty(sxi,s z) in the high-resolution image (HRI), a time-delay ∆t is applied to the low-resolution image (LRI) data at the laTtehrealsppoasittiiootnexmf :poral impulse response of the transmit sub-aperture is used to ext excitation signals which correspond to different transmit configurations [6]
Summary
Synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) was first introduced for the singleelement transducer. The high-resolution image is reconstructed based on the two-way travel path. The authors proved this new approach can achieve a comparable imaging quality with a simpler receive electronic front-end than dynamic receive focusing (DRF). Due to the lack of focusing in the first beamformer, NDSB requires a large transmit opening angle to combine more data to generate a high-resolution image in the second stage. This means a large number of active elements. Spatial compounding methods have not been applied to sequential beamforming in synthetic aperture imaging. The proposed compounding method improves contrast ratio and contrast-to-noise ratio in-vitro, and in-vivo
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