Ultrasound probe calibration using traceable frames of "V" phantom

Development of an accurate relationship between the ultrasound image frame and the markers mounted on it, which is known as calibration, is a crucial step in ultrasound guided interventions. In this study, a new designed phantom is introduced which not only provides an acceptable level of accuracy, but also needs no alignment between the probe and the ultrasound image. Our proposed phantom takes the advantages of the line instead of point segmentation. Additionally, ease of construction as well as working effectively with a small number of ultrasound images could be considered as other advantages of the new phantom. Measurement results indicated the convergence of the calibration accuracy to 1.6 mm when employing 30 and 45 training and test images, respectively after about 15 images. This heralds the use of ultrasound in the real time interventions in the operating rooms.