Spatial response identification enables robust experimental ultrasound computed tomography

Autor: Oscar Calderon Agudo, Carlos Cueto, Thomas Robins, Meng-Xing Tang, Lluís Guasch, George Strong, Javier Cudeiro, Oscar Bates
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Signal Processing (eess.SP)
Adult
Technology
Standards
Acoustics and Ultrasonics
Computer science
Acoustics
ultrasound computed tomography
Transducers
Impulse (physics)
01 natural sciences
Imaging phantom
09 Engineering
Surrogate model
Engineering
0103 physical sciences
Calibration
FOS: Electrical engineering
electronic engineering
information engineering

Humans
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Electrical Engineering and Systems Science - Signal Processing
ultrasonic transducers
010301 acoustics
Instrumentation
Impulse response
Ultrasonography
numerical models
Science & Technology
02 Physical Sciences
Orientation (computer vision)
Ultrasonic imaging
Phantoms
Imaging

eess.SP
Brain
Engineering
Electrical & Electronic

Surface waves
full-waveform inversion (FWI)
Transducer
MEDICAL ULTRASOUND
ACOUSTIC HOLOGRAPHY
Ultrasonic sensor
Surface reconstruction
Tomography
X-Ray Computed
Popis: Ultrasound computed tomography techniques have the potential to provide clinicians with 3D, quantitative and high-resolution information of both soft and hard tissues such as the breast or the adult human brain. Their practical application requires accurate modelling of the acquisition setup: the spatial location, orientation, and impulse response of each ultrasound transducer. However, existing calibration methods fail to accurately characterise these transducers unless their size can be considered negligible when compared to the dominant wavelength, which reduces signal-to-noise ratios below usable levels in the presence of high-contrast tissues such as the skull. In this paper, we introduce a methodology that can simultaneously estimate the location, orientation, and impulse response of the ultrasound transducers in a single calibration. We do this by extending spatial response identification, an algorithm that we have recently proposed to estimate transducer impulse responses. Our proposed methodology replaces the transducers in the acquisition device with a surrogate model whose effective response matches the experimental data by fitting a numerical model of wave propagation. This results in a flexible and robust calibration procedure that can accurately predict the behaviour of the ultrasound acquisition device without ever having to know where the real transducers are or their individual impulse response. Experimental results using a ring acquisition system show that spatial response identification produces calibrations of significantly higher quality than standard methodologies across all transducers, both in transmission and in reception. Experimental full-waveform inversion reconstructions of a tissue-mimicking phantom demonstrate that spatial response identification generates more accurate reconstructions than those produced with standard calibration techniques.
Databáze: OpenAIRE