Linux based reconfigurable platform for high speed ultrasonic imaging

In this paper, we present a Reconfigurable Ultrasonic System-on-Chip Hardware (RUSH) platform for real-time signal analysis and image processing. The platform is designed to directly process the full range of ultrasound from 20 KHz to 20 MHz. The project aims to make it simple to effectively develop and implement algorithms in embedded software and reconfigurable hardware. This provides the user with an opportunity to explore the full design space including software only, hardware only, and hardware/software co-design. The RUSH platform provides high speed access to a 12-bit ADC controlled by a Xilinx FPGA. Access to the ultrasound data and custom IP cores is available through a gigabit Ethernet connection managed by an embedded Linux based operating system running on a Microblaze processor instantiated in the FPGA fabric.