Biomedical subjects

Robert C Waag

Publications and source records attributed to Robert C Waag.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

A ring transducer system for medical ultrasound research.

An ultrasonic ring transducer system has been developed for experimental studies of scattering and imaging. The transducer consists of 2048 rectangular elements with a 2.5-MHz center frequency, a 67% -6 dB bandwidth, and a 0.23-mm pitch arranged in a 150-mm-diameter ring with a 25-mm elevation. At the center frequency, the element size is 0.30lambda x 42lambda and the pitch is 0.38lambda. The system has 128 parallel transmit channels, 16 parallel receive channels, a 2048:128 transmit multiplexer, a 2048:16 receive multiplexer, independently programmable transmit waveforms with 8-bit resolution, and receive amplifiers with time variable gain independently programmable over a 40-dB range. Receive signals are sampled at 20 MHz with 12-bit resolution. Arbitrary transmit and receive apertures can be synthesized. Calibration software minimizes system nonidealities caused by noncircularity of the ring and element-to-element response differences. Application software enables the system to be used by specification of high-level parameters in control files from which low-level hardware-dependent parameters are derived by specialized code. Use of the system is illustrated by producing focused and steered beams, synthesizing a spatially limited plane wave, measuring angular scattering, and forming b-scan images.

Biomedical Research↗

PubMed2006

Reduction of variance in spectral estimates for correction of ultrasonic aberration.

A variance reduction factor is defined to describe the rate of convergence and accuracy of spectra estimated from overlapping ultrasonic scattering volumes when the scattering is from a spatially uncorrelated medium. Assuming that the individual volumes are localized by a spherically symmetric Gaussian window and that centers of the volumes are located on orbits of an icosahedral rotation group, the factor is minimized by adjusting the weight and radius of each orbit. Conditions necessary for the application of the variance reduction method, particularly for statistical estimation of aberration, are examined. The smallest possible value of the factor is found by allowing an unlimited number of centers constrained only to be within a ball rather than on icosahedral orbits. Computations using orbits formed by icosahedral vertices, face centers, and edge midpoints with a constraint radius limited to a small multiple of the Gaussian width show that a significant reduction of variance can be achieved from a small number of centers in the confined volume and that this reduction is nearly the maximum obtainable from an unlimited number of centers in the same volume.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2005

Statistical estimation of ultrasonic propagation path parameters for aberration correction.

Parameters in a linear filter model for ultrasonic propagation are found using statistical estimation. The model uses an inhomogeneous-medium Green's function that is decomposed into a homogeneous-transmission term and a path-dependent aberration term. Power and cross-power spectra of random-medium scattering are estimated over the frequency band of the transmit-receive system by using closely situated scattering volumes. The frequency-domain magnitude of the aberration is obtained from a normalization of the power spectrum. The corresponding phase is reconstructed from cross-power spectra of subaperture signals at adjacent receive positions by a recursion. The subapertures constrain the receive sensitivity pattern to eliminate measurement system phase contributions. The recursion uses a Laplacian-based algorithm to obtain phase from phase differences. Pulse-echo waveforms were acquired from a point reflector and a tissue-like scattering phantom through a tissue-mimicking aberration path from neighboring volumes having essentially the same aberration path. Propagation path aberration parameters calculated from the measurements of random scattering through the aberration phantom agree with corresponding parameters calculated for the same aberrator and array position by using echoes from the point reflector. The results indicate the approach describes, in addition to time shifts, waveform amplitude and shape changes produced by propagation through distributed aberration under realistic conditions.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2004

Comparisons of lesion detectability in ultrasound images acquired using time-shift compensation and spatial compounding.

The effects of aberration, time-shift compensation, and spatial compounding on the discrimination of positive-contrast lesions in ultrasound b-scan images are investigated using a two-dimensional (2-D) array system and tissue-mimicking phantoms. Images were acquired within an 8.8 x 12-mm2 field of view centered on one of four statistically similar 4-mm diameter spherical lesions. Each lesion was imaged in four planes offset by successive 45 degree rotations about the central scan line. Images of the lesions were acquired using conventional geometric focusing through a water path, geometric focusing through a 35-mm thick distributed aberration phantom, and time-shift compensated transmit and receive focusing through the aberration phantom. The views of each lesion were averaged to form sets of water path, aberrated, and time-shift compensated 4:1 compound images and 16:1 compound images. The contrast ratio and detectability index of each image were computed to assess lesion differentiation. In the presence of aberration representative of breast or abdominal wall tissue, time-shift compensation provided statistically significant improvements of contrast ratio but did not consistently affect the detectability index, and spatial compounding significantly increased the detectability index but did not alter the contrast ratio. Time-shift compensation and spatial compounding thus provide complementary benefits to lesion detection.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2004

Spectral estimation for characterization of acoustic aberration.

Spectral estimation based on acoustic backscatter from a motionless stochastic medium is described for characterization of aberration in ultrasonic imaging. The underlying assumptions for the estimation are: The correlation length of the medium is short compared to the length of the transmitted acoustic pulse, an isoplanatic region of sufficient size exists around the focal point, and the backscatter can be modeled as an ergodic stochastic process. The motivation for this work is ultrasonic imaging with aberration correction. Measurements were performed using a two-dimensional array system with 80 x 80 transducer elements and an element pitch of 0.6 mm. The f number for the measurements was 1.2 and the center frequency was 3.0 MHz with a 53% bandwidth. Relative phase of aberration was extracted from estimated cross spectra using a robust least-mean-square-error method based on an orthogonal expansion of the phase differences of neighboring wave forms as a function of frequency. Estimates of cross-spectrum phase from measurements of random scattering through a tissue-mimicking aberrator have confidence bands approximately +/- 5 degrees wide. Both phase and magnitude are in good agreement with a reference characterization obtained from a point scatterer.

Adipose Tissue↗

PubMed2003

Simulation of ultrasonic focus aberration and correction through human tissue.

Ultrasonic focusing in two dimensions has been investigated by calculating the propagation of ultrasonic pulses through cross-sectional models of human abdominal wall and breast. Propagation calculations used a full-wave k-space method that accounts for spatial variations in density, sound speed, and frequency-dependent absorption and includes perfectly matched layer absorbing boundary conditions. To obtain a distorted receive wavefront, propagation from a point source through the tissue path was computed. Receive focusing used an angular spectrum method. Transmit focusing was accomplished by propagating a pressure wavefront from a virtual array through the tissue path. As well as uncompensated focusing, focusing that employed time-shift compensation and time-shift compensation after backpropagation was investigated in both transmit and receive and time reversal was investigated for transmit focusing in addition. The results indicate, consistent with measurements, that breast causes greater focus degradation than abdominal wall. The investigated compensation methods corrected the receive focus better than the transmit focus. Time-shift compensation after backpropagation improved the focus from that obtained using time-shift compensation alone but the improvement was less in transmit focusing than in receive focusing. Transmit focusing by time reversal resulted in lower sidelobes but larger mainlobes than the other investigated transmit focus compensation methods.

Abdomen↗

PubMed2002

Estimation and compensation of ultrasonic wavefront distortion using a blind system identification method.

A common random input filter model is described for estimation and correction of wavefront aberration in ultrasonic b-scan imaging. In the model, aberration between the focus and the transducer elements is represented by the response of a linear filter bank to a common random signal. The response of each filter in the bank is found using a two-level extension of an existing subspace method for blind system identification. The receive waveforms are compensated using an inverse filter, and the transmit waveforms are predistorted using time reversal. To test the model, experiments were conducted using a two-dimensional array system to obtain echoes from a point reflector and from a random medium in each case through an aberrator. The aberrator is a phantom that mimics wavefront distortion produced by human abdominal wall, and the random medium is made to mimic ultrasonic characteristics of human liver. The results indicate the method can improve both the transmit and the receive focus and can outperform time-shift estimation and compensation as well as the method of backpropagation followed by timeshift estimation and compensation.

Abdominal Muscles↗

PubMed2002

Examples of design curves for multirow arrays used with time-shift compensation.

The effect of 1.75-D array element height on time-shift compensation is analyzed using a two-dimensional array system and a distributed aberration phantom. The analysis uses hydrophone measurements of transmit beams. The results indicate that, for imaging at 3 MHz through aberration representative of the abdominal wall, similar focus compensation performance can be expected from arrays with element pitches less than or equal to 3.0 mm.

Phantoms, Imaging↗

PubMed2002

A k-space method for coupled first-order acoustic propagation equations.

A k-space method for large-scale simulation of ultrasonic pulse propagation is presented. The present method, which solves the coupled first-order differential equations for wave propagation in inhomogeneous media, is derived in a simple form analogous to previous finite-difference methods with staggered spatial and temporal grids. Like k-space methods based on second-order wave equations, the present method is exact for homogeneous media, unconditionally stable for "slow" [c(r) < or = c0] media, and highly accurate for general weakly scattering media. In addition, unlike previous k-space methods, the form of the method allows straightforward inclusion of relaxation absorption and perfectly matched layer (PML) nonreflecting boundary conditions. Numerical examples illustrate the capabilities of the present k-space method. For weakly inhomogeneous media, accurate results are obtained using coarser temporal and spatial steps than possible with comparable finite-difference and pseudospectral methods. The low dispersion of the k-space method allows accurate representation of frequency-dependent attenuation and phase velocity associated with relaxation absorption. A technique for reduction of Gibbs phenomenon artifacts, in which compressibility and exponentially scaled density functions are smoothed by half-band filtering, is introduced. When employed together with this smoothing technique, the k-space method provides high accuracy for media including discontinuities, high-contrast inhomogeneities, and scattering structures smaller than the spatial grid resolution.

Acoustics↗

PubMed2002

Spatial coherence analysis applied to aberration correction using a two-dimensional array system.

Complex degree of coherence functions are computed using synthetic and measured ultrasound data to demonstrate noteworthy aspects of coherence analysis in the context of aberration correction. Coherence functions calculated from synthetic data illustrate the importance of proper normalization of the constituent cross-correlation integrals when weak elements and receiver directivity are significant factors. The synthetic data also show that a spike can occur at the zero-lag position of the coherence function when the signal-to-noise ratio is reduced by element directivity near the edges of a large aperture. The latter observation is confirmed by experimental data acquired through tissue-mimicking distributed aberration phantoms using a low f-number two-dimensional array system. The coherence of data acquired at neighboring elements is not changed by time-shift compensation of transmit and receive focusing, but time-shift compensation does improve the coherence of echoes measured over larger separations. The resulting increase in coherence widths evaluated at levels between 0.2 and 0.5 is correlated with narrower -10 dB and -20 dB effective widths in focuses visualized using single-transmit images. Iterative focus compensation methods may benefit from aberration estimation algorithms that take advantage of these longer-range correlations in random-scattering waveforms.

Artifacts↗