A study on the reconstruction of moderate contrast targets using the distorted born iterative method

Previous tomographic methods using ultrasound for reconstructing sound speed and attenuation images suffered from convergence issues for targets with moderate speed of sound contrast. Convergence problems can be overcome by the use of the multiple frequency, distorted Born iterative method (DBIM). The implementation of DBIM for measurement configurations in which receiver positions are fixed was studied, and a novel regularization scheme was developed. The regularization parameter needed to stabilize the inversion process initially was found through the Rayleigh quotient iteration, then relaxed according to the relative residual error between the measured and estimated scattered fields. The DBIM was successfully stabilized for both full and partial receiver angular coverage without a significant loss in spatial resolution. The effects of variable density in the reconstructions were briefly explored through simulations. The ability to reconstruct targets with moderate contrast was validated through experimental measurements. Speed of sound profiles for balloons filled with saline in a background of water were reconstructed using multiple frequency DBIM techniques. The mean squared error for speed of sound reconstructions of the balloon phantoms with 16.4% sound speed contrast was 1.1%.