Ultrafast 3D ultrasound imaging using row-column array specific Frame-Multiply-and-Sum beamforming
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Hansen-Shearer, Joseph
Lerendegui, Marcelo
Toulemonde, Matthieu
Tang, Mengxing
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Row-column arrays have been shown to be able to generate 3-D ultrafast ultrasound images with an order of magnitude less independent electronic channels than traditional 2-D matrix arrays. Unfortunately, row-column array images suffer from major imaging artefacts due to high side-lobes, particularly when operating at high frame rates. This paper proposes a rowcolumn specific beamforming technique, for orthogonal plane wave transmissions, that exploits the incoherent nature of certain row-column array artefacts. A series of volumetric images are produced using row or column transmissions of 3-D plane waves. The voxel-wise geometric mean of the beamformed volumetric images from each row and column pair is taken prior to compounding, which drastically reduces the incoherent imaging artefacts in the resulting image compared to traditional coherent compounding. The effectiveness of this technique was demonstrated in silico and in vitro, and the results show a significant reduction in side-lobe level with over 16 dB improvement in sidelobe to main-lobe energy ratio. Significantly improved contrast was demonstrated with contrast ratio increased by ∼10dB and generalised contrast-to-noise ratio increased by 158% when using the proposed new method compared to existing delay and sum during in vitro studies. The new technique allowed for higher quality 3-D imaging whilst maintaining high frame rate potential
Date Issued
2021-10-27
Date Acceptance
2021-10-18
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, 2021, 69 (2), pp.480-488
ISSN
0885-3010
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Start Page
480
End Page
488
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control
Volume
69
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9591637
Grant Number
EP/T008970/1
Subjects
02 Physical Sciences
09 Engineering
Acoustics
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-10-27