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SVETOSLAV
NIKOLOV
Center for Fast Ultrasound Imaging, Department of Information
Technology, Build. 344, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby
An approach for three-dimensional real-time ultrasound imaging
One of the main applications of ultrasound imaging is in cardiology, where a real-time
cross-sectional image of the heart is used for diagnosis. The image does not readily
display the complicated 3D structure of the heart, and it would be beneficial to have a
dynamic 3-D view, in which the physician can study the dynamic anatomy, spatial
relationships of the moving structures and the haemodynamics.
In order to obtain 3D images with a good spatial resolution, it is necessary to obtain
64×64 scan lines. The necessary time to acquire a scan line is about 200 µs, which gives
a frame rate of 1.2 Hz, too low for cardiac applications. One possible solution of the
problem is to form multiple beams in receive.
In current systems, high resolution and contrast in the images are maintained by using
phased array transducers with at least 64 elements. For the 3D case, it would be necessary
to have a 2-D phased-array transducer that consists of 64 by 64 elements, i.e., 4096
transmit and receive channels, a too large number for practical implementation.
The talk describes an approach to obtain 3D images with a high contrast and resolution
using different sparse-array transducers to transmit and receive. The proposed technique
requires only 121 transmit and 64 receive channels. It also enables parallel beam forming
in receive. Realistic, simulated 3D volume images are presented to evaluate the
performance of the proposed 2D geometries for transducers design. A frame rate of 15 Hz
can be attained. |