基于微型阵列换能器的复合多角度平面波超快速超声成像

Ultrafast Imaging of Coherent Plane-wave Compouding Based on a Small Size Ultrasound Transducer

超声内窥镜成像多使用传统聚焦超声成像技术,成像帧率较低,难以满足临床部分对成像速率要求较高的应用需要。在近年来的热点研究领域中,平面波超快速成像技术可以获得较高的成像帧率,并保证成像的质量。因此,该文提出一种基于微型线阵超声换能器的平面波超快速成像技术,并通过仿真计算和仿体实验验证了该方法的有效性。实验结果表明,应用在平面波超快速成像的微型换能器,设计时需要充分考虑阵元宽度与阵元个数的配合,才能获得良好的平面波成像效果。这为今后在介入式超声成像、超声内窥镜等环境下进行平面波超快速成像奠定了基础。

The ultrasound endoscopic probes with very small size transducers are normally imaging by focused ultrasound beamforming technology.So the imaging frame rate is not very high,which cannot meet the needs of some clinical applications based on high imaging rate.In recent years,plane-wave ultrafast imaging technology can obtain high image frame rate and guarantee the image quality.In this paper,a plane wave ultra-fast imaging technique based on a home-made small line array ultrasound transducer is presented.Feasibility of the method is verified by simulation estimations and phantom experiments.The results show that for the small size transducer design of plane wave ultrafast imaging,it is necessary to fully consider the combination of the array element width and the number of array elements.So that a good plane wave imaging quality can be obtained.It lays a foundation for the ultra-fast imaging of plane wave in the interventional ultrasound imaging and ultrasound endoscopy.