Full Aperture Imaging Research Articles

Sub-aperture ultrafast volumetric ultrasound imaging for fully sampled dual-mode matrix array

Fully sampled dual-mode matrix array ultrasound transducer is capable of performing imaging and therapeutic ultrasound in three dimensions (3D). It is a promising tool for many clinical applications because of its precise multi-focus therapy with imaging guidance by itself. Our team previously designed a 256-element fully sampled dual-mode matrix array transducer, while its imaging quality needs to be further improved. In this work, we propose a high-contrast sub-aperture volumetric imaging strategy to improve the imaging quality of the dual-mode matrix array. We first analyzed the effect of various parameters of sub-aperture imaging on the imaging quality by Field II. Based on the optimized parameters, we compared the resolution and signal to noise ratio (SNR) of sub-aperture imaging with those of full aperture imaging on phantoms and rabbit brain. The experimental results showed the proposed sub-aperture imaging method could obtain a comparable resolution to full aperture imaging. Moreover, the average intensity of noise signal near the wire phantom decreased by about 5 dB and the SNR of tissue phantom image increased by 8 %. The proposed sub-aperture imaging method also enabled clearer and more accurate imaging of the rabbit brain. The obtained results indicate the proposed sub-aperture imaging is a promising method for practical use of a fully sampled dual-mode matrix array for volumetric ultrasound imaging.

Minimizing Image Quality Loss After Channel Count Reduction for Plane Wave Ultrasound via Deep Learning Inference.

High-frame-rate ultrasound imaging uses unfocused transmissions to insonify an entire imaging view for each transmit event, thereby enabling frame rates over 1000 frames per second (fps). At these high frame rates, it is naturally challenging to realize real-time transfer of channel-domain raw data from the transducer to the system back end. Our work seeks to halve the total data transfer rate by uniformly decimating the receive channel count by 50% and, in turn, doubling the array pitch. We show that despite the reduced channel count and the inevitable use of a sparse array aperture, the resulting beamformed image quality can be maintained by designing a custom convolutional encoder-decoder neural network to infer the radio frequency (RF) data of the nullified channels. This deep learning framework was trained with in vivo human carotid data (5-MHz plane wave imaging, 128 channels, 31 steering angles over a 30° span, and 62 799 frames in total). After training, the network was tested on an in vitro point target scenario that was dissimilar to the training data, in addition to in vivo carotid validation datasets. In the point target phantom image beamformed from inferred channel data, spatial aliasing artifacts attributed to array pitch doubling were found to be reduced by up to 10 dB. For carotid imaging, our proposed approach yielded a lumen-to-tissue contrast that was on average within 3 dB compared to the full-aperture image, whereas without channel data inferencing, the carotid lumen was obscured. When implemented on an RTX-2080 GPU, the inference time to apply the trained network was 4 ms, which favors real-time imaging. Overall, our technique shows that with the help of deep learning, channel data transfer rates can be effectively halved with limited impact on the resulting image quality.

A Full-Aperture Image Synthesis Method for the Rotating Rectangular Aperture System Using Fourier Spectrum Restoration

The novel rotating rectangular aperture (RRA) system provides a good solution for space-based, large-aperture, high-resolution imaging tasks. Its imaging quality depends largely on the image synthesis algorithm, and the mainstream multi-frame deblurring approach is sophisticated and time-consuming. In this paper, we propose a novel full-aperture image synthesis algorithm for the RRA system, based on Fourier spectrum restoration. First, a numerical simulation model is established to analyze the RRA system’s characteristics and obtain the point spread functions (PSFs) rapidly. Then, each image is used iteratively to calculate the increment size and update the final restored Fourier spectrum. Both the simulation’s results and the practical experiment’s results show that our algorithm performs well in terms of objective evaluation and time consumption.

A Transceiver ASIC for a Single-Cable 64-Element Intra-Vascular Ultrasound Probe

This article presents an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed for intra-vascular ultrasound imaging that interfaces 64 piezoelectric transducer elements to an imaging system using a single micro-coaxial cable. Thus, it allows a single-element transducer to be replaced by a transducer array to enable 3-D imaging. The 1.5-mm-diameter ASIC is intended to be mounted at the tip of a catheter, directly integrated with a 2-D array of piezoelectric transducer elements. For each of these elements, the ASIC contains a high-voltage (HV) switch, allowing the elements to transmit an acoustic wave in response to an HV pulse generated by the imaging system. A low-noise amplifier then amplifies the resulting echo signals and relays them as a signal current to the imaging system, while the same cable provides a 3-V supply. Element selection and other settings can be programmed by modulating configuration data on the supply, thus enabling full synthetic aperture imaging. An integrated element test mode measures the element capacitance to detect bad connections to the transducer elements. The ASIC has been fabricated in a 0.18- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> HV CMOS technology and consumes only 6 mW in receive. Electrical measurements show correct switching of 30-V transmit pulses and a receive amplification with a 71-dB dynamic range, including 12 dB of programmable gain over a 3-dB bandwidth of 21 MHz. The functionality of the ASIC has been successfully demonstrated in a 3-D imaging experiment.

Multichannel Sliding Spotlight SAR Imaging: First Result of GF-3 Satellite

Multichannel SAR system operating in the sliding spotlight mode has the capacity of imaging with very high resolution as requested by future spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mission; hence, it has been attracted more and more attention in the SAR community. In a multichannel sliding spotlight SAR system with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula> channels, the overall Doppler bandwidth of the data acquired by each channel is greater than <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N \cdot \text {PRF}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ; thus, the preprocessing algorithms (channel mismatch calibration and signal reconstruction) are no more available. To address this issue, a full-aperture imaging method for azimuth multichannel sliding spotlight mode is proposed in this article. First, the raw data of each channel need to be preprocessed based on a deramping operation, which can obtain an unambiguous Doppler spectrum. Afterward, the algorithm proposed for single-channel sliding spotlight mode can be performed. Finally, to avoid possible back-folded SAR images, postprocessing after focusing is demanded in some cases. The imaging results of the data acquired by GaoFen-3 (GF-3) are given for the first time in this article, which proves the effectiveness of the proposed imaging method and demonstrates the capacity of high-resolution wide-swath imaging of the multichannel sliding spotlight mode.

Researches for Terahertz Radar’s High-Quality Imaging Method Based on the Sub-Aperture

Existing Terahertz radar using CSAR mode has the problem of unsatisfactory imaging quality. The target and the noise are mixed in the full-aperture imaging result, which is difficult to use for automatic target recognition; and its sub-aperture-based imaging method not only does not completely solve this problem, but also brings about the problems of generating fake scattering points and the dependence on manual debugging. In view of the shortcomings of existing sub-aperture-based imaging methods, a Terahertz radar's high-quality imaging method based on the sub-aperture is proposed by us. Among our research, 4 new methods, namely the sub-aperture division method which divides overlapping sub-apertures, the sub-aperture boundary point selection method, two new methods of selecting the sub-aperture boundary point, are used. The imaging method proposed by us further improves the signal-to-noise ratio of the target in the imaging result, and can be applied to targets with more complex shapes. Moreover, our imaging method solves the problems of generating fake scattering points and the dependence on manual debugging. After field test, our imaging method has better imaging quality than existing methods, and it is less dependent on manual debugging.

Sub-aperture phase error stitching for full aperture airborne SAL data processing method based on azimuth deramp

Synthetic Aperture Ladar (SAL) is a combination of synthetic aperture and lidar. At present, sub-aperture stitching with PGA algorithm is used to realize SAL imaging. However, this algorithm has a low rate of data utilization, resulting in a worse image SNR and resolution. For solving this problem, a method of sub-aperture phase error stitching for full aperture airborne SAL data processing based on azimuth deramp is proposed in this paper. The data is divided into a sequence of sub-apertures and the standard Standard Minimum Entropy Autofocus (MEA) is used to estimate the phase error of each sub-aperture. Then all the phase errors of the sub-apertures are stitched to obtain the full-aperture phase error. After the compensation of the full-aperture phase error, the full-aperture image is obtained by deramp. Compared with the SAL image obtained by sub-aperture algorithm, the method we proposed can offer better resolution and SNR. Finally, the imaging results of airborne SAL real data verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

An Improved Full-Aperture ScanSAR Imaging Method Integrating the MIAA Based Aperture Interpolation

In the scanning synthetic aperture radar (ScanSAR) mode, the radar antenna sweeps through different range subswaths to image a wide swath. The full-aperture imaging algorithm for ScanSAR data has been widely used because it can be realized by exploiting the existing standard high-precision Stripmap SAR processor and does not require stitch processing in the azimuth. However, both the focused image and the interferogram achieved by full-aperture processing suffer from spikes. The spikes adversely affect the ScanSAR-related applications, such as target detection and interferometry. To effectively suppress the spikes, an improved algorithm based on the missing-data iterative adaptive approach (MIAA) is proposed in this manuscript. Besides, the proposed method can also improve the azimuth resolution of ScanSAR images. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that this algorithm has better performance when processing ScanSAR data compared with existing methods.

机载合成孔径激光雷达全孔径成像算法

机载合成孔径激光雷达全孔径成像算法

Height Retrieval in Postprocessing-Based VideoSAR Image Sequence Using Shadow Information

Video synthetic aperture radar (VideoSAR) imaging mode presents the capability of generating dynamic scenes. In this paper, a postprocessing-based VideoSAR imaging scheme suitable for frequency-domain SAR algorithms is proposed to achieve more flexible application. First, the full-aperture image can be partitioned into the stationary region and a dynamic region of interest (DROI). Then the selected DROI data is segmented at a certain overlapping rate in the azimuth Doppler spectrum. Thus, the unified VideoSAR image coordinate system is achieved, and hence extra image registration technique is avoided. Moreover, VideoSAR can distinguish the relationship between the stationary target and shadow for a more accurate retrieval of height information. Subsequently, a complete procedure of information extraction without geometric prior knowledge, including denoising algorithm, threshold segmentation, matching strategy, and height retrieval is proposed in detail. Based on varying shadows and scattering characteristics in the DROI, multiple experiments using real airborne X-band VideoSAR data validate the feasibility of the proposed imaging scheme and the height retrieval method can achieve a higher accuracy.

Study on Full Aperture Imaging Algorithm for Airborne TOPS Mode

The beam-scan allows the terrain observation by progressive scans (TOPS) mode to cover large azimuthal scenes in a short time, which also causes aliasing in both Doppler domain and azimuth time domain. In the TOPS mode, the most popular solution to overcome the aliasing problem is the “sub-aperture” method, which introduces sub-aperture partition and stitching operations. Aiming at an airborne digital array frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) SAR system, this paper discusses the removal of azimuth aliasing in the TOPS mode based on a full aperture imaging structure, by analyzing the Doppler characteristics of the echo signal of the airborne TOPS mode, the aliasing problem in the Doppler domain is avoided by properly setting system working parameters, which simplifies the imaging procedure; in addition, drawing up the idea of the de-rotation operation, we propose an improved frequency scaling algorithm, which removes the aliasing in the azimuth time domain without increasing the amount of processing data, and the algorithm contains only fast Fourier transformation and complex multiplication operations. The simulation results show that the algorithm can achieve the well-focused images of the airborne TOPS mode even in the case of serious aliasing in the azimuth time domain.

Processing Sliding Mosaic Mode Data With Modified Full-Aperture Imaging Algorithm Integrating Scalloping Correction

Modified full-aperture imaging algorithm for sliding Mosaic mode synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is presented in this paper, which includes scalloping correction and spikes suppression. The full-aperture imaging algorithm is introduced into Mosaic mode and validated by real C-band airborne SAR imaging experiments. The main idea is to substitute zeros between bursts with linear-predicted data extrapolated from adjacent bursts to suppress the spikes caused by multibursts processing. Furthermore, scalloping correction for sliding Mosaic mode is integrated with this algorithm. It is innovational to correct the azimuth beam pattern weighting altered by radar antenna rotation in azimuth with deramping preprocessing operation. Finally, experiments performed by the C-band airborne SAR system with a maximum bandwidth of 200 MHz validate the effectiveness of the approach.

Full aperture imaging algorithm for highly squinted TOPS SAR

Aiming at solving the azimuth signal aliasing problem in the Doppler domain, the azimuth time aliasing problem after range cell migration correction (RCMC) and the severe range and the azimuth coupling problem in both the phase and envelope for highly squinted terrain observation by progressive scans (TOPS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a novel full aperture imaging algorithm is presented. An unaliased two-dimensional (2-D) spectrum is first obtained by the azimuth preprocessing; the modified range migration algorithm (RMA) is then used to complete RCMC; and finally the azimuth signal is focused in the Doppler domain by spectral analysis (SPECAN) and deramping. Simulations and real data processing results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

A Wide-Swath Spaceborne TOPS SAR Image Formation Algorithm Based on Chirp Scaling and Chirp-Z Transform.

Based on the terrain observation by progressive scans (TOPS) mode, an efficient full-aperture image formation algorithm for focusing wide-swath spaceborne TOPS data is proposed. First, to overcome the Doppler frequency spectrum aliasing caused by azimuth antenna steering, the range-independent derotation operation is adopted, and the signal properties after derotation are derived in detail. Then, the azimuth deramp operation is performed to resolve image folding in azimuth. The traditional dermap function will introduce a time shift, resulting in appearance of ghost targets and azimuth resolution reduction at the scene edge, especially in the wide-swath coverage case. To avoid this, a novel solution is provided using a modified range-dependent deramp function combined with the chirp-z transform. Moreover, range scaling and azimuth scaling are performed to provide the same azimuth and range sampling interval for all sub-swaths, instead of the interpolation operation for the sub-swath image mosaic. Simulation results are provided to validate the proposed algorithm.

Near-Space TOPSAR Large-Scene Full-Aperture Imaging Scheme Based on Two-Step Processing.

Free of the constraints of orbit mechanisms, weather conditions and minimum antenna area, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) equipped on near-space platform is more suitable for sustained large-scene imaging compared with the spaceborne and airborne counterparts. Terrain observation by progressive scans (TOPS), which is a novel wide-swath imaging mode and allows the beam of SAR to scan along the azimuth, can reduce the time of echo acquisition for large scene. Thus, near-space TOPS-mode SAR (NS-TOPSAR) provides a new opportunity for sustained large-scene imaging. An efficient full-aperture imaging scheme for NS-TOPSAR is proposed in this paper. In this scheme, firstly, two-step processing (TSP) is adopted to eliminate the Doppler aliasing of the echo. Then, the data is focused in two-dimensional frequency domain (FD) based on Stolt interpolation. Finally, a modified TSP (MTSP) is performed to remove the azimuth aliasing. Simulations are presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed imaging scheme for near-space large-scene imaging application.

Improved Full-Aperture ScanSAR Imaging Algorithm Based on Aperture Interpolation

In this letter, an improved full-aperture imaging algorithm for scanning synthetic aperture radar (ScanSAR) mode is proposed, which fills the data gaps between bursts through a linear-prediction-model-based aperture interpolation technique in a subaperture manner before azimuth compression. It can significantly suppress the spikes induced by periodical data gaps and, at the same time, enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of the obtained ScanSAR imagery. This approach has a great potential in the interferometric context. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by both simulated and real ScanSAR data with different types of terrain. All the experimental data were acquired by the C-band SAR system with a bandwidth of 200 MHz, which was developed by the Department of Space Microwave Remote Sensing System, Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Dark-field microscopic image stitching method for surface defects evaluation of large fine optics

One of the challenges in surface defects evaluation of large fine optics is to detect defects of microns on surfaces of tens or hundreds of millimeters. Sub-aperture scanning and stitching is considered to be a practical and efficient method. But since there are usually few defects on the large aperture fine optics, resulting in no defects or only one run-through line feature in many sub-aperture images, traditional stitching methods encounter with mismatch problem. In this paper, a feature-based multi-cycle image stitching algorithm is proposed to solve the problem. The overlapping areas of sub-apertures are categorized based on the features they contain. Different types of overlapping areas are then stitched in different cycles with different methods. The stitching trace is changed to follow the one that determined by the features. The whole stitching procedure is a region-growing like process. Sub-aperture blocks grow bigger after each cycle and finally the full aperture image is obtained. Comparison experiment shows that the proposed method is very suitable to stitch sub-apertures that very few feature information exists in the overlapping areas and can stitch the dark-field microscopic sub-aperture images very well.

Imaging processor for different spaceborne SAR imaging modes

Up to now, multiple innovative spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging schemes have been demonstrated for high resolution or/and wide swath coverage. Different imaging modes usually require different imaging processors to focus their raw data. However, presented is a novel full-aperture imaging processor for different imaging modes. According to echo properties of different SAR imaging modes, a preprocessing step and a post-processing step are added to a modified accurate range migration algorithm processor. In addition to the advantage of being suitable for different imaging modes, this imaging processor is very efficient, since it avoids the large azimuth data extension to resolve the aliasing problem. Imaging results on simulated raw date validate the proposed imaging processor.

An Efficient Approach With Scaling Factors for TOPS-Mode SAR Data Focusing

The Terrain Observation by Progressive Scans (TOPS) mode is a novel spaceborne imaging mode which can be used to obtain wide-swath coverage and overcome major drawbacks in conventional ScanSAR. An efficient full-aperture imaging approach, which takes advantage of the two-step focusing technique and the azimuth baseband scaling operation, is presented for processing the TOPS-mode synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. First, the proposed two-step focusing technique for spotlight and sliding spotlight SAR data focusing is adopted to resolve the aliased Doppler spectrum. Afterward, the following extended chirp scaling processing procedure with azimuth scaling factors is used to implement the residual TOPS raw-data focusing. Since the use of subapertures is avoided and only a limited azimuth-data extension is required, this algorithm is highly efficient. Simulation results validate the proposed imaging approach.

Stereoscopic full aperture imaging in nuclear medicine

Images of planar scintigraphy and single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) used in nuclear medicine are often low quality. They usually appear to be blurred and noisy. This problem is due to the low spatial resolution and poor sensitivity of the acquisition technique with the gamma camera (GC). Other techniques, such as coded aperture imaging (CAI) reach higher spatial resolutions than GC. However, CAI is not frequently used for imaging in nuclear medicine, due to the decoding complexity of some images and the difficulty in controlling the noise magnitude. Summing up, the images obtained through GC are low quality and it is still difficult to implement CAI technique. A novel technique, full aperture Imaging (FAI), also uses gamma ray-encoding to obtain images, but the coding system and the method of images reconstruction are simpler than those used in CAI. In addition, FAI also reaches higher spatial resolution than GC. In this work, the principles of FAI technique and the method of images reconstruction are explained in detail. The FAI technique is tested by means of Monte Carlo simulations with filiform and spherical sources. Spatial resolution tests of GC versus FAI were performed using two different source-detector distances. First, simulations were made without interposing any material between the sources and the detector. Then, other more realistic simulations were made. In these, the sources were placed in the centre of a rectangular prismatic region, filled with water. A rigorous comparison was made between GC and FAI images of the linear filiform sources, by means of two methods: mean fluence profile graphs and correlation tests. Finally, three-dimensional capacity of FAI was tested with two spherical sources. The results show that FAI technique has greater sensitivity (&amp;gt;100 times) and greater spatial resolution (&amp;gt;2.6 times) than that of GC with LEHR collimator, in both cases, with and without attenuating material and long and short-distance configurations. The FAI decoding algorithm reconstructs simultaneously four different projections which are located in separate image fields on the detector plane, while GC produces only one projection per acquisition. Simulations have allowed comparison of both techniques under ideal identical conditions. Our results show it is possible to apply an extremely simple encoded imaging technique, and get three-dimensional radioactivity information for simplistic geometry sources. The results are promising enough to evaluate the possibility of future research with more complex sources typical of nuclear medicine imaging.