A novel electronic architecture used to support biomedical photo-acoustic imaging

In this paper, the electronic architecture used in the implementation of a 128-channel biomedical photo-acoustic imaging system is described. The goal of our research was to verify that the electronic system developed is well-suited for our photo-acoustic imaging application. In essence, we investigated the analog front end for our imaging system, including the data acquisition system. The imaging system described herein was designed for use with a 128-element circularly phased transducer array, with an approximate bandwidth of 9 MHz, centered about 5.5 MHz. Our implemented architecture was highly specific for our research application. Specifically, we relaxed any usual transducer probe size limitations to allow us to bring the entire analog front end as close to the transducer insertion point as possible. In our case, each of the 128 transducer elements has a dedicated high-gain, low-noise, pre-amplifier stage within five inches. Even though our end user application is photo-acoustic imaging, other imaging modalities, such as conventional ultrasonic imaging, can be supported