Frequency compounding of synthetic aperture ultrasound imagery using multiscale products

Ultrasound waves offer good penetration in many materials and because they have the ability to detect and locate very small defects, non destructive testing based on this technology is very popular. Resolution in range is proportional to the bandwidth of the transmitted pulse but at higher frequencies noise is more prominent. Therefore, there is a tradeoff between detection accuracy and image quality. In this work, the authors propose the formation of a high resolution image based on synthetic aperture focusing that includes multiple frequency scans. By using a series of pulse-based waveforms with different bandwidths, a singularity analysis can be performed and based on wavelet decomposition and multiscale products, noise can be significantly reduced while preserving good resolution.