Phased Array Imaging Research Articles

An efficient application of fusion approach for hot spot detection with MODIS and PALSAR-1 data

Hot spot detection with satellite images, especially with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is still a challenging task. Several researchers have used TM/optical data for identification of hot spot but the use of SAR data is very limited for this type of application. The fusion of SAR data with TM/optical data may add additional information which in turn will lead for enhancement of detection capability of the hot spot. Therefore, this study explores the possibility of fusion of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) satellite images for the hot spot detection. Image fusion is emerging as a powerful tool where information of various sensors can be used for obtaining better results. For this purpose, vegetation greenness and roughness information which is obtained from MODIS and PALSAR satellite images, respectively, are used for fusion, and then, a contextual-based thresholding algorithm is applied to the fused image for hot spot detection. The proposed approach comprises of two steps: (1) application of genetic algorithm-based scheme for image fusion of MODIS and PALSAR satellite images, and (2) classification of the fused image as either hot spot or non-hot spot pixels by employing a contextual thresholding technique. The algorithm is tested over the Jharia Coal Field region of India, where hot spot is one of the major problems and it is observed that the proposed thresholding technique classifies the each pixel of the fused image into two categories: hot spot and non-hot spot and the proposed approach detects the hot spot with better accuracy and less false alarm.

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) focal spot localization using harmonic motion imaging (HMI)

Several ultrasound-based imaging modalities have been proposed for image guidance and monitoring of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment. However, accurate localization and characterization of the effective region of treatment (focal spot) remain important obstacles in the clinical implementation of HIFU ablation. Harmonic motion imaging for focused ultrasound (HMIFU) is a HIFU monitoring technique that utilizes radiation-force-induced localized oscillatory displacement. HMIFU has been shown to correctly identify the formation and extent of HIFU thermal ablation lesions. However a significant problem remains in identifying the location of the HIFU focus, which is necessary for treatment planning. In this study, the induced displacement was employed to localize the HIFU focal spot inside the tissue prior to treatment. Feasibility was shown with two separate systems. The 1D HMIFU system consisted of a HIFU transducer emitting an amplitude-modulated HIFU beam for mechanical excitation and a confocal single-element, pulse-echo transducer for simultaneous RF acquisition. The 2D HIFU system consists of a HIFU phased array, and a co-axial imaging phased array for simultaneous imaging. Initial feasibility was first performed on tissue-mimicking gelatin phantoms and the focal zone was defined as the region corresponding to the −3dB full width at half maximum of the HMI displacement. Using the same parameters, in vitro experiments were performed in canine liver specimens to compare the defined focal zone with the lesion. In vitro measurements showed good agreement between the HMI predicted focal zone and the induced HIFU lesion location. HMIFU was experimentally shown to be capable of predicting and tracking the focal region in both phantoms and in vitro tissues. The accuracy of focal spot localization was evaluated by comparing with the lesion location in post-ablative tissues, with a R2 = 0.821 at p < 0.002 in the 2D HMI system. We demonstrated the feasibility of using this HMI-based technique to localize the HIFU focal spot without inducing thermal changes during the planning phase. The focal spot localization method has also been applied on ex vivo human breast tissue ablation and can be fully integrated into any HMI system for planning purposes.

Testing Echo Amplitude Changes Depending on an Ultrasonic Beam Angle of Incidence on an Infinite Reflector

The article presents test results related to the detectability of flat discontinuities depending on their orientation in relation to the axis of an ultrasonic wave beam. The flat discontinuity used in the tests was the skew surface of a DGS standard, being an infinite reflector for an ultrasonic wave. The tests were performed using a Phased Array transducer and a defectoscope with a Phased Array imaging package enabling the determination of echo amplitude for various beam insertion angle values. As a result, it was possible to obtain the characteristics of a decibel echo drop depending on the beam angle of incidence on the reflector in a range from the optimum to a disadvantageous value. The article also contains the analysis of the effect of a determined characteristic on the detectability of flat discontinuities in conventional ultrasonic tests as well as discusses manners of making it possible to increase the detectability of flat discontinuities.. The article is directed primarily to NDT personnel, in particular to those performing ultrasonic tests of welded joints.

Ultrasonic Phased Array 3D Imaging for the Steel Butt Weld Defects

Ultrasonic phased array imaging detection technology combinating the focused beam and array probe movement can get powerful test information. It has been widely used in the steel butt weld detection. For making up the limitations of 2D view, in this paper,we used one-dimensional linear array probe, got 2D slice view data obtained by phased array ultrasonic S-scan, through software programming algorithm to realize 3D reconstruction of steel butt weld typical defects. Experiment shows that it can display more intuitive performance of the defects in space. Revealing a better shape, size and orientation information. Providing a reference for the final evaluation of the defect.

Reducing Relative Gain and Noise Response Variations for Phased-Array Feed Imaging of Radio Astronomical Sources

In comparison to a single horn-feed system, single dish radio astronomical imaging with a phased-array feed (PAF) has additional noise due to variations in the responses of the various beams used in the creation of the image. This increased noise may obscure weak sources of interest and discredit the ability of a PAF to increase sky survey speed. In order to reduce the beam-to-beam variations, we introduce several new PAF beamforming strategies. A dual constraint beamformer is designed to simultaneously satisfy uniform main beam and noise response constraints, eliminating one aspect of the variation. A rim constraint beamformer that relies on calibrator sources on the rim of the reflector dish to control the spillover pattern variations among beams with eigenvector constraints is introduced and shown to reduce beam-to-beam variations. Finally, by combining the dual constraint and rim constraint beamformers, we are able to construct a beamformer that provides spillover pattern control while meeting specified gain and noise response constraints to reduce the beam-to-beam variations and improve PAF imaging.

Nonlinear ultrasonic phased array imaging.

This Letter reports a technique for the imaging of acoustic nonlinearity. By contrasting the energy of the diffuse field produced through the focusing of an ultrasonic array by delayed parallel element transmission with that produced by postprocessing of sequential transmission data, acoustic nonlinearity local to the focal point is measured. Spatially isolated wave distortion is inferred without requiring interrogation of the wave at the inspection point, thereby allowing nonlinear imaging through depth.

Comparison of 3-D synthetic aperture phased-array ultrasound imaging and parallel beamforming.

This paper demonstrates that synthetic aperture imaging (SAI) can be used to achieve real-time 3-D ultrasound phased-array imaging. It investigates whether SAI increases the image quality compared with the parallel beamforming (PB) technique for real-time 3-D imaging. Data are obtained using both simulations and measurements with an ultrasound research scanner and a commercially available 3.5- MHz 1024-element 2-D transducer array. To limit the probe cable thickness, 256 active elements are used in transmit and receive for both techniques. The two imaging techniques were designed for cardiac imaging, which requires sequences designed for imaging down to 15 cm of depth and a frame rate of at least 20 Hz. The imaging quality of the two techniques is investigated through simulations as a function of depth and angle. SAI improved the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) at low steering angles by 35%, and the 20-dB cystic resolution by up to 62%. The FWHM of the measured line spread function (LSF) at 80 mm depth showed a difference of 20% in favor of SAI. SAI reduced the cyst radius at 60 mm depth by 39% in measurements. SAI improved the contrast-to-noise ratio measured on anechoic cysts embedded in a tissue-mimicking material by 29% at 70 mm depth. The estimated penetration depth on the same tissue-mimicking phantom shows that SAI increased the penetration by 24% compared with PB. Neither SAI nor PB achieved the design goal of 15 cm penetration depth. This is likely due to the limited transducer surface area and a low SNR of the experimental scanner used.

Image Enhancement for Sub-Harmonic Phased Array by Removing Surface Wave Interference with Spatial Frequency Filter

Closed cracks are difficult to detect using conventional ultrasonic testing because most incident ultrasound passes completely through these cracks. Nonlinear ultrasound inspection using sub-harmonic frequencies a promising method for detecting closed cracks. To implement this method, a sub-harmonic phased array (PA) is proposed to visualize the length of closed cracks in solids. A sub-harmonic PA generally consists of a single transmitter and an array receiver, which detects sub-harmonic waves generated from closed cracks. The PA images are obtained using the total focusing method (TFM), which (with a transmitter and receiving array) employs a full matrix in the observation region to achieve fine image resolution. In particular, the receiving signals are measured using a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) to collect PA images for both fundamental and sub-harmonic frequencies. Oblique incidence, which is used to boost sub-harmonic generation, inevitably produces various surface waves that contaminate the signals measured in the receiving transducer. Surface wave interference often degrades PA images severely, and it becomes difficult to read the closed crack's position from the images. Various methods to prevent or eliminate this interference are possible. In particular, enhancing images with signal processing could be a highly cost-effective method. Because periodic patterns distributed in a PA image are the most frequent interference induced by surface waves, spatial frequency filtering is applicable for removing these waves. Experiments clearly demonstrate that the spatial frequency filter improves PA images.

Evaluation of crack closure stress by analyses of ultrasonic phased array images during global preheating and local cooling

Crack closure stress (CCS) is an important parameter that affects crack propagation rate. However, the method for measuring CCS in practical fields has yet to be developed. In this study, we propose a practical method of estimating CCS. In our experiment, a closed fatigue crack was imaged by a linear phased array (PA) method during crack opening by global preheating and local cooling (GPLC). Here, we assumed that the crack appears in PA images after the thermal stress induced by GPLC exceeds CCS. Therefore, we calculated the thermal stress induced by GPLC using an analytical solution and thereby estimated CCS. Then, to validate the CCS estimation method, we simulated the PA images by a finite difference time domain (FDTD) method with a damped double node (DDN) model, where CCS was relieved by the calculated thermal stress. Consequently, the temporal variation in crack depth observed in the PA image was successfully reproduced in the simulation. Thus, the CCS estimation method was verified by comparing experimental results with analysis results.

954 Utility of preoperative 3 Tesla pelvic phased-array magnetic resonance imaging in prediction of extracapsular extension of prostate cancer and its impact on surgical margin status: Experience at a Canadian tertiary academic health science center

954 Utility of preoperative 3 Tesla pelvic phased-array magnetic resonance imaging in prediction of extracapsular extension of prostate cancer and its impact on surgical margin status: Experience at a Canadian tertiary academic health science center

3P2-14 Effect of thermal conductivity on phased array imaging of closed crack by global preheating and local cooling(Poster Session)

3P2-14 Effect of thermal conductivity on phased array imaging of closed crack by global preheating and local cooling(Poster Session)

基于合成孔径技术的内镜超声相控阵成像算法

基于合成孔径技术的内镜超声相控阵成像算法

Integrated Circuits for Volumetric Ultrasound Imaging With 2-D CMUT Arrays

Real-time volumetric ultrasound imaging systems require transmit and receive circuitry to generate ultrasound beams and process received echo signals. The complexity of building such a system is high due to requirement of the front-end electronics needing to be very close to the transducer. A large number of elements also need to be interfaced to the back-end system and image processing of a large dataset could affect the imaging volume rate. In this work, we present a 3-D imaging system using capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology that addresses many of the challenges in building such a system. We demonstrate two approaches in integrating the transducer and the front-end electronics. The transducer is a 5-MHz CMUT array with an 8 mm × 8 mm aperture size. The aperture consists of 1024 elements (32 × 32) with an element pitch of 250 μm. An integrated circuit (IC) consists of a transmit beamformer and receive circuitry to improve the noise performance of the overall system. The assembly was interfaced with an FPGA and a back-end system (comprising of a data acquisition system and PC). The FPGA provided the digital I/O signals for the IC and the back-end system was used to process the received RF echo data (from the IC) and reconstruct the volume image using a phased array imaging approach. Imaging experiments were performed using wire and spring targets, a ventricle model and a human prostrate. Real-time volumetric images were captured at 5 volumes per second and are presented in this paper.

Refraction Correction in 3D Transcranial Ultrasound Imaging

We present the first correction of refraction in three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound imaging using an iterative approach that traces propagation paths through a two-layer planar tissue model, applying Snell's law in 3D. This approach is applied to real-time 3D transcranial ultrasound imaging by precomputing delays offline for several skull thicknesses, allowing the user to switch between three sets of delays for phased array imaging at the push of a button. Simulations indicate that refraction correction may be expected to increase sensitivity, reduce beam steering errors, and partially restore lost spatial resolution, with the greatest improvements occurring at the largest steering angles. Distorted images of cylindrical lesions were created by imaging through an acrylic plate in a tissue-mimicking phantom. As a result of correcting for refraction, lesions were restored to 93.6% of their original diameter in the lateral direction and 98.1% of their original shape along the long axis of the cylinders. In imaging two healthy volunteers, the mean brightness increased by 8.3% and showed no spatial dependency.

3-D Transcranial Ultrasound Imaging with Bilateral Phase Aberration Correction of Multiple Isoplanatic Patches: A Pilot Human Study with Microbubble Contrast Enhancement

With stroke currently the second-leading cause of death globally, and 87% of all strokes classified as ischemic, the development of a fast, accessible, cost-effective approach for imaging occlusive stroke could have a significant impact on health care outcomes and costs. Although clinical examination and standard computed tomography alone do not provide adequate information for understanding the complex temporal events that occur during an ischemic stroke, ultrasound imaging is well suited to the task of examining blood flow dynamics in real time and may allow for localization of a clot. A prototype bilateral 3-D ultrasound imaging system using two matrix array probes on either side of the head allows for correction of skull-induced aberration throughout two entire phased array imaging volumes. We investigated the feasibility of applying this custom correction technique in five healthy volunteers with Definity microbubble contrast enhancement. Subjects were scanned simultaneously via both temporal acoustic windows in 3-D color flow mode. The number of color flow voxels above a common threshold increased as a result of aberration correction in five of five subjects, with a mean increase of 33.9%. The percentage of large arteries visualized by 3-D color Doppler imaging increased from 46% without aberration correction to 60% with aberration correction.

Interleaved optical coherence tomography

We present a novel and cost-effective technique--interleaved optical coherence tomography (iOCT)--to enhance the imaging speed of swept source OCT systems by acquiring data from multiple lateral positions simultaneously during a single wavelength sweep, using a single detector and a virtually imaged phase array (VIPA) as a multi-band demultiplexer. This technique uses spectral encoding to convert coherence length into higher imaging speed; the speed enhancement factor is independent of the source speed or center wavelength, and the effective A-scan rate scales linearly with sweep speed. The optical configuration requires only a change in the sample arm of a traditional OCT system and preserves the axial resolution and fall-off characteristic of a traditional SS-OCT using the same light source. Using 10 kHz, 20 kHz and 100 kHz sources we provide a first demonstration of image speed enhancement factors of up to 12, 6 and 10, respectively, which yield effective A-scan rates of 120 kHz, 120 kHz and 1 MHz for B-scan imaging, with a sensitivity of up to 82.5 dB. We also show that iOCT can image faster dynamics than traditional OCT B-scan imaging and is capable of 3D biological imaging. The iOCT concept suggests a new route to high-speed OCT imaging for laser developers: that is, by focusing on improving the coherence length and linewidth of existing and emerging sources. Hence, iOCT is a nice complement to ongoing research and commercial efforts to enable faster imaging through development of lasers with faster sweep rates, and offers new hope for existing sources with slow sweep rates and potential for enhancement of coherence length to compete with faster sources to achieve high-speed OCT.

Research on Application of Tunable Dispersion Compensation Technology in Optical Fiber Communication Systems

For high bit-rate optical communications system, the changes in temperature or power fluctuations are due to the dispersion of the dispersion tolerance than the system. Therefore, the dispersion compensation unit must have the functionality to adapt to the dynamic generation of tunable optical communication network development. This article describes several dynamic tunable compensation techniques and the basic principles of the performance characteristics of the situation at home and abroad, including the chirped fiber grating method, the virtual image phased array method, GT interferometer method, the array method and the planar waveguide grating method, and a brief discussion of tunable dispersion compensation technology in the future direction of development.

Wideband and compact quasi‐Yagi antenna with bowtie‐shaped drivers

A wideband and compact end-fire antenna with bowtie-shape drivers is proposed. Based on a wideband microstrip-to-coplanar stripline transition and bowtie-shaped drivers, a broadband impedance bandwidth of more than 75% (4.70–10.44 GHz) for return loss less than − 15 dB and a gain of 5.0–9.1 dBi are obtained. What is more, the front-to-back ratio over the frequency of interest is less than − 10 dB. The overall dimensions of the proposed antenna are only 30 × 24.24 mm2. A prototype is fabricated and measured. The simulated and measured results of the proposed antenna indicate that it is suitable for phased array and microwave imaging systems.

Research on Improving Lateral Resolution of Ultrasound Phased Array Elements by Using Sparse Matrix

In the phased array imaging system, in order to get better images,the lateral resolution need to be improved and the grating lobes need to be eliminated. Restrainning the width of the main lobe is a way to improve the lateral resolution of the system. This article designed the non-periodic distribution of elements to decrease the width of main lobe of the transducer using sparse matrix methods. In this way, we can improve the lateral resolution, resolve the problem of high-density of elements in phased array element, eliminate the impact of the gate lobe, lowerring the effects of radiation in the neighboring elements, save costs and overcome the difficulty in production of elements.

High-selectivity imaging of closed cracks using elastic waves with thermal stress induced by global preheating and local cooling

The authors developed a practical method based on the thermal stress dependence of cracks for the accurate imaging of closed cracks with high selectivity. A tightly closed fatigue crack was visualized in linear phased array (PA) images by opening the crack with the tensile thermal stress induced by global preheating and local cooling (GPLC), although the conventional method of using only local cooling could not fully open the crack. Furthermore, by the subtraction of the PA images before and after GPLC, only the closed crack was extracted with high selectivity while canceling the other linear scatterers.