Motion during image acquisition can cause image
degradation in all medical imaging modalities. This is particularly
relevant in 2-D ultrasound imaging, since out-of-plane motion
can only be compensated for movements smaller than elevational
beamwidth of the transducer. Localization based super-resolution
imaging creates even a more challenging motion correction task
due to the requirement of a high number of acquisitions to form
a single super-resolved frame.
In this study, an extension of two-stage motion correction
method is proposed for 3-D motion correction. Motion estimation
was performed on high volumetric rate ultrasound acquisitions
with a handheld probe. The capability of the proposed method
was demonstrated with a 3-D microvascular flow simulation to
compensate for handheld probe motion. Results showed that two-
stage motion correction method reduced the average localization
error from 136 to 18
μ
m.