New Sector Scan Geometry for High Frame Rate 2D-Echocardiography using Phased Arrays

Abstract

2D echocardiography high frame rate techniques do have some drawbacks such as crosstalk artifacts caused by the interactions between the parallel transmitted and received beams. In this paper, we suggest a new cardiac imaging technique based on MLT (Multi-Line Transmission). The main idea of our approach is to benefit from the scan geometry to reduce the interference between the simultaneously transmitted beams. We propose to do the scan at different depths and in parallel to the diagonal scan sector. Therefore, compared to existing MLT techniques, the new scan sector strategy will result in artifacts' reduction in the ultrasound imaging systems. We entitled our approach the Synthetic Sum of Multi-Line Transmission (SS-MLT). Simulations of Point Spread Function (PSF), multiple Point Spread Functions (PSFs) and Cyst Phantom (CP) provided in this paper are compared in our approach to the main classical ultrasound imaging approaches. Therefore, the SS-MLT exhibits a very similar lateral profile as the Single Line Transmission (SLT) algorithm. Hence, the simulation results indicate a potential value of a future hardware implementation of SS-MLT technique.