Title :
P5C-6 Compact Ultrasound Scanner with Built-in Raw Data Acquisition Capabilities
Author :
Mo, L.Y.L. ; DeBusschere, D. ; Bai, W. ; Napolitano, D. ; Irish, A. ; Marschall, S. ; McLaughlin, G.W. ; Yang, Z. ; Carson, P.L. ; Fowlkes, J.B.
Author_Institution :
ZONARE Med. Syst., Inc., Mountain View
Abstract :
A research data acquisition tool named "IQscan" on a commercial ultrasound system is presented. IQscan enables the in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) components of pre- detected image data to be acquired and exported as a raw data DICOM file. The capabilities of this built-in feature for a compact and battery-operated scanner are described, and are demonstrated by two application examples. The first example involves a 3 MHz curved array scan of a nylon-fiber-target phantom and demonstrates the reconstruction from I/Q to radio frequency (RF) echo data, as well as the typical Gaussian-shaped transmit waveforms. The second example demonstrates a new "pixel compounding" technique that aims at recovering echo details from noisy data by compensating for sub-pixel displacement between successive image frames. Key to obtaining sub-wavelength displacement estimates is having access to the phase information in the I/Q data. Results for both phantom and in vivo IQscan data obtained using a 7.5 MHz linear array show promising image quality improvements.
Keywords :
biomedical equipment; biomedical ultrasonics; data acquisition; image reconstruction; image scanners; medical image processing; phantoms; DICOM file; Gaussian-shaped transmit waveforms; IQscan tool; built-in raw data acquisition tool; compact ultrasound scanner; curved array; frequency 3 MHz; frequency 7.5 MHz; image quality; image reconstruction; in vivo data; in-phase components; linear array; nylon-fiber-target phantom; pixel compounding technique; quadrature components; radiofrequency echo data; sub-pixel displacement; sub-wavelength displacement estimates; DICOM; Data acquisition; Gaussian processes; Image reconstruction; Imaging phantoms; In vivo; Phase estimation; Pixel; Radio frequency; Ultrasonic imaging;
Conference_Titel :
Ultrasonics Symposium, 2007. IEEE
Conference_Location :
New York, NY
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1384-3
Electronic_ISBN :
1051-0117
DOI :
10.1109/ULTSYM.2007.568