Ultrasound image enhancement based on an annular array pulse-echo system

An important aspect of diagnostic ultrasound is a good visualization of organ or tissue surfaces. The goal of the ultrasound image enhancement method presented in this paper is to selectively enhance the clarity of anatomical structures of a specified geometry, such as arteries. With ultrasound array transducers, e.g. linear and annular arrays, a large number of different insonifying ultrasound fields can be produced, including ultrasound fields which will maximize the energy of the received signal for a given transducer and reflector geometry. The calculation of such fields is described in this paper.