The reflection ultrasound computed tomography (UCT) is gaining prominence as an essential instrument for breast cancer screening. However, reflection UCT quality is often compromised by the variability in sound speed across breast tissue. Traditionally, reflection UCT utilizes the delay-and-sum (DAS) algorithm, where the time of flight (TOF) significantly affects the coherence of the reflected radio frequency (RF) data, based on an oversimplified assumption of uniform sound speed. This study introduces three meticulously engineered modules that leverage the spatial correlation of receiving arrays to improve the coherence of RF data and enable more effective summation. These modules include the self-supervised blind RF data segment block (BSegB) and the state-space model-based strong reflection prediction (SSM-SRP) block, followed by a polarity-based adaptive replacing refinement (PARR) strategy to suppress sidelobe noise caused by aperture narrowing. To assess the effectiveness of our method, we utilized standard image quality metrics, including peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index measure (SSIM), and root mean squared error (RMSE). In addition, coherence factor (CF) and variance (Var) were employed to verify the method’s ability to enhance signal coherence at the RF data level. The findings reveal that our approach greatly improves performance, achieving an average PSNR of 19.64 dB, an average SSIM of 0.71, and an average RMSE of 0.10, notably under conditions of sparse transmission. The conducted experimental analyses affirm the superior performance of our framework compared to alternative enhancement strategies, including adaptive beamforming methods and deep learning-based beamforming approaches.
{"title":"Self-Supervised Optimization of RF Data Coherence for Improving Breast Reflection UCT Reconstruction","authors":"Lei He;Zhaohui Liu;Yuxin Cai;Qiude Zhang;Liang Zhou;Jing Yuan;Yang Xu;Mingyue Ding;Ming Yuchi;Wu Qiu","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3581915","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3581915","url":null,"abstract":"The reflection ultrasound computed tomography (UCT) is gaining prominence as an essential instrument for breast cancer screening. However, reflection UCT quality is often compromised by the variability in sound speed across breast tissue. Traditionally, reflection UCT utilizes the delay-and-sum (DAS) algorithm, where the time of flight (TOF) significantly affects the coherence of the reflected radio frequency (RF) data, based on an oversimplified assumption of uniform sound speed. This study introduces three meticulously engineered modules that leverage the spatial correlation of receiving arrays to improve the coherence of RF data and enable more effective summation. These modules include the self-supervised blind RF data segment block (BSegB) and the state-space model-based strong reflection prediction (SSM-SRP) block, followed by a polarity-based adaptive replacing refinement (PARR) strategy to suppress sidelobe noise caused by aperture narrowing. To assess the effectiveness of our method, we utilized standard image quality metrics, including peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index measure (SSIM), and root mean squared error (RMSE). In addition, coherence factor (CF) and variance (Var) were employed to verify the method’s ability to enhance signal coherence at the RF data level. The findings reveal that our approach greatly improves performance, achieving an average PSNR of 19.64 dB, an average SSIM of 0.71, and an average RMSE of 0.10, notably under conditions of sparse transmission. The conducted experimental analyses affirm the superior performance of our framework compared to alternative enhancement strategies, including adaptive beamforming methods and deep learning-based beamforming approaches.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 8","pages":"1147-1159"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144475011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-20DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3581642
Shichao Jia;Hanmu Guo;Roderick Y. H. Lim;Soichiro Tsujino
Surface-acoustic-wave (SAW)-driven acoustic tweezers (ATs) have been widely explored for high-resolution ultrasonic sample manipulation. Among these, hybrid ATs comprising a reusable SAW chip and a disposable glass or silicon microfluidic (MF) chip as a superstrate offer advantages such as reduced experimental costs and minimized cross-contamination between experiments. However, maximizing the acoustic pressure within the MF channel requires efficient acoustic coupling between the SAW and the MF structure. In this work, we investigate the frequency-dependent characteristics of acoustophoresis of 50-MHz hybrid ATs composed of an SAW chip and a silicon MF chip. We elucidate the role of the bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonances in the silicon substrate in facilitating the formation of acoustic standing waves (SWs) within the MF channel. The experimental results demonstrate the generation of acoustic pressures up to $2.1~pm ~0.5$ MPa inside the channel. The fabricated device was successfully used to probe the transient viscoelastic deformation of HEK293T cells and to trap motile cells Tetrahymena. These findings highlight the potential of the proposed hybrid ATs as a platform for acousto-mechanical testing of soft matter and biological samples.
{"title":"Surface-Acoustic-Wave-Driven Acoustic Tweezing in a Silicon Microfluidic Chip","authors":"Shichao Jia;Hanmu Guo;Roderick Y. H. Lim;Soichiro Tsujino","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3581642","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3581642","url":null,"abstract":"Surface-acoustic-wave (SAW)-driven acoustic tweezers (ATs) have been widely explored for high-resolution ultrasonic sample manipulation. Among these, hybrid ATs comprising a reusable SAW chip and a disposable glass or silicon microfluidic (MF) chip as a superstrate offer advantages such as reduced experimental costs and minimized cross-contamination between experiments. However, maximizing the acoustic pressure within the MF channel requires efficient acoustic coupling between the SAW and the MF structure. In this work, we investigate the frequency-dependent characteristics of acoustophoresis of 50-MHz hybrid ATs composed of an SAW chip and a silicon MF chip. We elucidate the role of the bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonances in the silicon substrate in facilitating the formation of acoustic standing waves (SWs) within the MF channel. The experimental results demonstrate the generation of acoustic pressures up to <inline-formula> <tex-math>$2.1~pm ~0.5$ </tex-math></inline-formula> MPa inside the channel. The fabricated device was successfully used to probe the transient viscoelastic deformation of HEK293T cells and to trap motile cells Tetrahymena. These findings highlight the potential of the proposed hybrid ATs as a platform for acousto-mechanical testing of soft matter and biological samples.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 8","pages":"1005-1014"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144336491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Power Doppler imaging is a commonly used technique for visualizing blood flow in ultrasound imaging. This technique measures flow amplitude rather than velocity, and it relies on detecting the power of Doppler signals, making it particularly useful for detecting weak blood flow. The emergence of coherent plane wave (PW) compounding has enabled significant progress in ultrafast power Doppler imaging. However, the lack of transmit focusing leads to a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast, thereby reducing the sensitivity to blood flow, particularly in deep tissue regions. We propose to increase the SNR and contrast of ultrafast power Doppler imaging by leveraging the ideal correlation properties of complete complementary codes (CCC) for multi-PW imaging (MPWI). The MPWI with CCC (MPWI-CCC) method consists of transmitting quasisimultaneously N tilted PWs coded with a binary sequence of length L. Subsequently, the backscattered signals from each PW are individually recovered with high amplitude through decoding. We compared MPWI-CCC and multiplane wave imaging with Hadamard encoding (MPWI-HD) against coherent PW compounding (CPWC) in both simulations and experiments. When transmitting four PWs on a commercial blood flow phantom, MPWI-CCC exhibited the SNR and contrast gains of 13.02 and 10.08 dB, respectively, compared to CPWC. MPWI-HD, on the other hand, achieved gains of only 6.99 and 4.29 dB, respectively.
{"title":"Complementary Coded Multiplane Wave Sequences for SNR Increase in Ultrafast Power Doppler Ultrasound Imaging","authors":"Tamraoui Mohamed;Adeline Bernard;Roux Emannuel;Liebgott Hervé","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3581350","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3581350","url":null,"abstract":"Power Doppler imaging is a commonly used technique for visualizing blood flow in ultrasound imaging. This technique measures flow amplitude rather than velocity, and it relies on detecting the power of Doppler signals, making it particularly useful for detecting weak blood flow. The emergence of coherent plane wave (PW) compounding has enabled significant progress in ultrafast power Doppler imaging. However, the lack of transmit focusing leads to a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast, thereby reducing the sensitivity to blood flow, particularly in deep tissue regions. We propose to increase the SNR and contrast of ultrafast power Doppler imaging by leveraging the ideal correlation properties of complete complementary codes (CCC) for multi-PW imaging (MPWI). The MPWI with CCC (MPWI-CCC) method consists of transmitting quasisimultaneously N tilted PWs coded with a binary sequence of length L. Subsequently, the backscattered signals from each PW are individually recovered with high amplitude through decoding. We compared MPWI-CCC and multiplane wave imaging with Hadamard encoding (MPWI-HD) against coherent PW compounding (CPWC) in both simulations and experiments. When transmitting four PWs on a commercial blood flow phantom, MPWI-CCC exhibited the SNR and contrast gains of 13.02 and 10.08 dB, respectively, compared to CPWC. MPWI-HD, on the other hand, achieved gains of only 6.99 and 4.29 dB, respectively.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 9","pages":"1256-1271"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144333032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-16DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3580168
Peter Lukacs;Don Pieris;Geo Davis;Matthew W. Riding;Theodosia Stratoudaki
Three-dimensional modality is critical for ultrasonic imaging to provide a representative volumetric view of objects, for better evaluation of the shape, size, and orientation of internal features. Conventional ultrasonic transducers are still used for the majority of phased-array ultrasonic measurements. However, transducer arrays have certain drawbacks and limitations: they use a contact technique, requiring couplants. They also have a considerable size/weight/footprint, preventing use in places with restricted access and/or extreme environments. Laser-generated and detected ultrasound presents a noncontact, remote, ultrasonic imaging method. Furthermore, laser-induced phased arrays (LIPAs) have been developed for ultrasonic imaging. Data captured with LIPAs have already been used in conjunction with the delay-and-sum imaging algorithm, the total focusing method (TFM), for high-quality, 2-D ultrasonic imaging. However, there have been very limited instances of 3-D laser ultrasonic imaging in the literature and no realization of the TFM yet, even though the TFM is considered the gold standard for ultrasonic imaging. This article presents a laser ultrasonic system capable of synthesizing 2-D LIPAs, which acquire all-optical data for 3-D TFM imaging. The potential and advantages of 2-D LIPAs for volumetric imaging are demonstrated first by comparing the use of 1-D and 2-D arrays to image a crack-like defect. Following this, 3-D TFM imaging using 2-D LIPAs is evaluated by imaging a sample with 4 bottom-drilled holes. The results are compared to those using three other 3-D laser ultrasonic techniques presented in the literature: monostatic SAFT, bistatic SAFT, and a method called fixed detector.
{"title":"Two-Dimensional Laser-Induced Phased Arrays for Remote Volumetric Ultrasonic Imaging","authors":"Peter Lukacs;Don Pieris;Geo Davis;Matthew W. Riding;Theodosia Stratoudaki","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3580168","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3580168","url":null,"abstract":"Three-dimensional modality is critical for ultrasonic imaging to provide a representative volumetric view of objects, for better evaluation of the shape, size, and orientation of internal features. Conventional ultrasonic transducers are still used for the majority of phased-array ultrasonic measurements. However, transducer arrays have certain drawbacks and limitations: they use a contact technique, requiring couplants. They also have a considerable size/weight/footprint, preventing use in places with restricted access and/or extreme environments. Laser-generated and detected ultrasound presents a noncontact, remote, ultrasonic imaging method. Furthermore, laser-induced phased arrays (LIPAs) have been developed for ultrasonic imaging. Data captured with LIPAs have already been used in conjunction with the delay-and-sum imaging algorithm, the total focusing method (TFM), for high-quality, 2-D ultrasonic imaging. However, there have been very limited instances of 3-D laser ultrasonic imaging in the literature and no realization of the TFM yet, even though the TFM is considered the gold standard for ultrasonic imaging. This article presents a laser ultrasonic system capable of synthesizing 2-D LIPAs, which acquire all-optical data for 3-D TFM imaging. The potential and advantages of 2-D LIPAs for volumetric imaging are demonstrated first by comparing the use of 1-D and 2-D arrays to image a crack-like defect. Following this, 3-D TFM imaging using 2-D LIPAs is evaluated by imaging a sample with 4 bottom-drilled holes. The results are compared to those using three other 3-D laser ultrasonic techniques presented in the literature: monostatic SAFT, bistatic SAFT, and a method called fixed detector.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 8","pages":"1053-1064"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144309906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-16DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3579871
Jaewon Lee;Xiaoning Jiang;Howuk Kim
This study investigates the integrity of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with the aid of guided ultrasonic waves (GUWs) generated by an active sensing network. Despite the expanding demands for secondary batteries in industrial fields, safety concerns remain with respect to LIBs in conventional battery management systems (BMSs). In order to avoid such safety concerns, including unpredictable explosions of LIBs, we developed a novel noninvasive imaging method to inspect the health status of LIBs with a relatively large spatial area using GUWs. We attached nine piezoelectric transducers on the surface of a LiFePO4 (LFP) battery by sectoring it into four spatial regions. The localized mechanical degradation of the LIB was simulated by attaching a weight that caused acoustic mismatch and wave interference. Numerical simulation results showed that acoustic signal changes caused by mechanical degradation in LIBs varied with the frequency and time domains. We investigated a status index based on the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) for application to the probabilistic reconstruction algorithm (PRA). The method was then validated using an actual LFP battery with dimensions of approximately $210times 300times 12$ mm3. The proposed method exhibited superior performance as compared with other existing indices, effectively capturing suspicious spatial regions with a high contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of over 19%. The proposed Li-ion battery health status imaging method holds promise for inspecting and monitoring the integrity of specific spatial areas in LIBs.
{"title":"Spatial Imaging of Local Degradations in Li-Ion Batteries Using Sparsely Distributed Active Sensors","authors":"Jaewon Lee;Xiaoning Jiang;Howuk Kim","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3579871","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3579871","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the integrity of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with the aid of guided ultrasonic waves (GUWs) generated by an active sensing network. Despite the expanding demands for secondary batteries in industrial fields, safety concerns remain with respect to LIBs in conventional battery management systems (BMSs). In order to avoid such safety concerns, including unpredictable explosions of LIBs, we developed a novel noninvasive imaging method to inspect the health status of LIBs with a relatively large spatial area using GUWs. We attached nine piezoelectric transducers on the surface of a LiFePO4 (LFP) battery by sectoring it into four spatial regions. The localized mechanical degradation of the LIB was simulated by attaching a weight that caused acoustic mismatch and wave interference. Numerical simulation results showed that acoustic signal changes caused by mechanical degradation in LIBs varied with the frequency and time domains. We investigated a status index based on the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) for application to the probabilistic reconstruction algorithm (PRA). The method was then validated using an actual LFP battery with dimensions of approximately <inline-formula> <tex-math>$210times 300times 12$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm3. The proposed method exhibited superior performance as compared with other existing indices, effectively capturing suspicious spatial regions with a high contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of over 19%. The proposed Li-ion battery health status imaging method holds promise for inspecting and monitoring the integrity of specific spatial areas in LIBs.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 8","pages":"1029-1040"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144309907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-11DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3578895
Gonzalo Collado-Lara;Geraldi Wahyulaksana;Hendrik J. Vos;Klazina Kooiman
Ultrasound molecular imaging (UMI) uses targeted microbubbles (MBs) to detect disease-associated biomarkers. For UMI, distinguishing the acoustic signals produced by bound MBs from those by free MBs and tissue is critical. Currently, the main approach, known as differential targeted enhancement (DTE), is time-intensive and requires MB destruction. Here, we introduce a novel, rapid, and nondestructive UMI technique utilizing higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD). HOSVD decomposes the signals of an acoustic contrast sequence, separating them owing to their nonlinear content and temporal coherence. The nonlinear separation enables distinction between tissue and MBs, while the temporal separation enables distinction between free and bound MBs. From the HOSVD output, we defined a bound MB indicator $chi $ , which indicates the presence of bound MBs. In our in vitro experiments, $chi $ was lower for free MBs and tissue ($0.04~pm ~0.03$ ) compared to bound MBs ($0.31~pm ~0.11$ without free MBs, decreasing with concentration down to $0.11~pm ~0.07$ at $20times 10^{{3}}$ free MBs/mL). In addition, the molecular signal determined from $chi $ correlated well with a DTE ground truth acquisition. The method was compared to other nondestructive techniques such as low-pass filtering and normalized singular spectrum area, demonstrating an average molecular signal enhancement of 12 dB. Furthermore, when used as a binary classifier, our method achieved a detection of up to $1.81times $ more true positives while reducing false positives by up to $1.78times $ . These findings suggest that HOSVD could pave the way to rapid, nondestructive UMI.
{"title":"Nondestructive Ultrasound Molecular Imaging With Higher Order Singular Value Decomposition","authors":"Gonzalo Collado-Lara;Geraldi Wahyulaksana;Hendrik J. Vos;Klazina Kooiman","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3578895","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3578895","url":null,"abstract":"Ultrasound molecular imaging (UMI) uses targeted microbubbles (MBs) to detect disease-associated biomarkers. For UMI, distinguishing the acoustic signals produced by bound MBs from those by free MBs and tissue is critical. Currently, the main approach, known as differential targeted enhancement (DTE), is time-intensive and requires MB destruction. Here, we introduce a novel, rapid, and nondestructive UMI technique utilizing higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD). HOSVD decomposes the signals of an acoustic contrast sequence, separating them owing to their nonlinear content and temporal coherence. The nonlinear separation enables distinction between tissue and MBs, while the temporal separation enables distinction between free and bound MBs. From the HOSVD output, we defined a bound MB indicator <inline-formula> <tex-math>$chi $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, which indicates the presence of bound MBs. In our in vitro experiments, <inline-formula> <tex-math>$chi $ </tex-math></inline-formula> was lower for free MBs and tissue (<inline-formula> <tex-math>$0.04~pm ~0.03$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) compared to bound MBs (<inline-formula> <tex-math>$0.31~pm ~0.11$ </tex-math></inline-formula> without free MBs, decreasing with concentration down to <inline-formula> <tex-math>$0.11~pm ~0.07$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at <inline-formula> <tex-math>$20times 10^{{3}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> free MBs/mL). In addition, the molecular signal determined from <inline-formula> <tex-math>$chi $ </tex-math></inline-formula> correlated well with a DTE ground truth acquisition. The method was compared to other nondestructive techniques such as low-pass filtering and normalized singular spectrum area, demonstrating an average molecular signal enhancement of 12 dB. Furthermore, when used as a binary classifier, our method achieved a detection of up to <inline-formula> <tex-math>$1.81times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> more true positives while reducing false positives by up to <inline-formula> <tex-math>$1.78times $ </tex-math></inline-formula>. These findings suggest that HOSVD could pave the way to rapid, nondestructive UMI.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 8","pages":"1095-1107"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11030728","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144274763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-06DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3577258
Nikola Radeljic-Jakic;Adriaan J. Flikweert;Nuriel N. M. Rozsa;Hendrik J. Vos;Michiel A. P. Pertijs
Emerging handheld and wearable ultrasound devices enable diagnosis and long-term monitoring outside clinical settings. They require a low-power, highly complex, locally integrated system to process the RF data. The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is a critical building block in the receive chain of these systems as it enables digital beamforming and image reconstruction. However, the ADCs currently used in cart-based imaging systems are bulky and consume too much power to be integrated into battery-powered devices. This article investigates how the area and power consumption of the commonly used successive approximation register (SAR) ADC can be reduced without negatively affecting B-mode and color-Doppler image quality. A Monte Carlo (MC) simulation study was performed in which RF data acquired with a phased-array transducer in Field II were digitized using a model of a nonideal ADC. Five different nonidealities were applied to four commonly used SAR-ADC architectures. B-mode and color-Doppler images were reconstructed from the digitized RF data. The impact of the nonidealities on the image quality was evaluated by means of three image quality metrics (IQM): peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index (SSIM), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). The effectiveness of error correction and ways of calibration are also discussed. The results show that both B-mode imaging and color-Doppler imaging are inherently resilient to nonidealities, particularly capacitor mismatch, leading to relaxed ADC requirements and paving the way for more practical in-probe digitization.
{"title":"Using Image Quality Metrics to Optimize the Design of Integrated Medical Ultrasound ADCs","authors":"Nikola Radeljic-Jakic;Adriaan J. Flikweert;Nuriel N. M. Rozsa;Hendrik J. Vos;Michiel A. P. Pertijs","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3577258","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3577258","url":null,"abstract":"Emerging handheld and wearable ultrasound devices enable diagnosis and long-term monitoring outside clinical settings. They require a low-power, highly complex, locally integrated system to process the RF data. The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is a critical building block in the receive chain of these systems as it enables digital beamforming and image reconstruction. However, the ADCs currently used in cart-based imaging systems are bulky and consume too much power to be integrated into battery-powered devices. This article investigates how the area and power consumption of the commonly used successive approximation register (SAR) ADC can be reduced without negatively affecting B-mode and color-Doppler image quality. A Monte Carlo (MC) simulation study was performed in which RF data acquired with a phased-array transducer in Field II were digitized using a model of a nonideal ADC. Five different nonidealities were applied to four commonly used SAR-ADC architectures. B-mode and color-Doppler images were reconstructed from the digitized RF data. The impact of the nonidealities on the image quality was evaluated by means of three image quality metrics (IQM): peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index (SSIM), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). The effectiveness of error correction and ways of calibration are also discussed. The results show that both B-mode imaging and color-Doppler imaging are inherently resilient to nonidealities, particularly capacitor mismatch, leading to relaxed ADC requirements and paving the way for more practical in-probe digitization.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 8","pages":"1065-1078"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144247684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-04DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3576337
Yi Huang, Feifei Zhao, Yanjun Xie, F William Mauldin, Alexander L Klibanov, John A Hossack
Ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) enables super-resolution ultrasound (SRUS) imaging of microvasculature, while ultrasound molecular imaging (USMI) characterizes molecular signatures using microbubbles (MBs) targeted to specific biomarkers. Although the co-localization of SRUS and USMI has been demonstrated previously, USMI resolution is limited by ultrasound diffraction-based effects and does not match the super-resolved microvasculature. This study introduces the Incremental Burst Sequence (IBS) method to induce the population of polydisperse targeted MBs to burst progressively, achieving MBs spatial separation and enabling high-resolution USMI (HR-USMI) localization. IBS method employs interleaved imaging and bursting pulses, with transmit voltages of bursting pulses incrementally increased to produce a gradual rise in the acoustic pressure. IBS is first validated optically in vitro using a cellulose tubing phantom, and MB remaining count during IBS is measured. Thereafter, in vivo validation is performed in a murine tumor model, and the intra-tumoral targeted MB signal intensity is measured during IBS. Furthermore, high frame-rate data for SRUS and IBS data for HR-USMI are acquired from a single bolus injection of MBs to generate composite images with high-resolution molecular signatures superimposed on the tumor microvasculature. Both in vitro and in vivo results validate the technical feasibility of the proposed IBS method. In addition, we demonstrate that higher bursting pulse repetitions lead to a faster disruption of the MB population during IBS. Finally, HR-USMI signals localized within a 50 μm × 50 μm grid are aligned with microvessels resolved better than 100 μm, presenting a combination of molecular signatures and anatomical structures at fine resolution.
{"title":"High-Resolution Ultrasound Molecular Imaging with Incremental Burst Sequence: in vitro and in vivo validation.","authors":"Yi Huang, Feifei Zhao, Yanjun Xie, F William Mauldin, Alexander L Klibanov, John A Hossack","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3576337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3576337","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) enables super-resolution ultrasound (SRUS) imaging of microvasculature, while ultrasound molecular imaging (USMI) characterizes molecular signatures using microbubbles (MBs) targeted to specific biomarkers. Although the co-localization of SRUS and USMI has been demonstrated previously, USMI resolution is limited by ultrasound diffraction-based effects and does not match the super-resolved microvasculature. This study introduces the Incremental Burst Sequence (IBS) method to induce the population of polydisperse targeted MBs to burst progressively, achieving MBs spatial separation and enabling high-resolution USMI (HR-USMI) localization. IBS method employs interleaved imaging and bursting pulses, with transmit voltages of bursting pulses incrementally increased to produce a gradual rise in the acoustic pressure. IBS is first validated optically in vitro using a cellulose tubing phantom, and MB remaining count during IBS is measured. Thereafter, in vivo validation is performed in a murine tumor model, and the intra-tumoral targeted MB signal intensity is measured during IBS. Furthermore, high frame-rate data for SRUS and IBS data for HR-USMI are acquired from a single bolus injection of MBs to generate composite images with high-resolution molecular signatures superimposed on the tumor microvasculature. Both in vitro and in vivo results validate the technical feasibility of the proposed IBS method. In addition, we demonstrate that higher bursting pulse repetitions lead to a faster disruption of the MB population during IBS. Finally, HR-USMI signals localized within a 50 μm × 50 μm grid are aligned with microvessels resolved better than 100 μm, presenting a combination of molecular signatures and anatomical structures at fine resolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"PP ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144225357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-03DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3576239
Sayantan Dutta;Jonathan Mamou
Quantitative acoustic microscopy (QAM) uses ultrahigh-frequency ultrasound (>200 MHz) to create 2-D maps of acoustic and mechanical properties of tissue at microscopic resolutions ($lt 8 ~mu $ m). Despite significant advancements in QAM, the spatial resolution of current systems, operating at 250 and 500 MHz, may remain insufficient for certain biomedical applications. However, developing a QAM system with finer resolution by using higher-frequency transducers is costly and necessitates skilled operators, and these systems are more sensitive to the outside environment (e.g., vibrations and temperature). This study extends a resolution enhancement framework by proposing a generalized 3-D approach for processing QAM radio frequency (RF) data. The framework utilizes a quantum-based adaptive denoiser, DeQuIP, implemented as a regularization-prior (RED-prior) to enhance QAM maps. Key contributions include temporal hyperparameter optimization, accelerated algorithm integration, and application of quantum interaction theory. DeQuIP employs quantum wave functions, derived from the acquired data, as adaptive transformations that function as an RED-prior. This enables the framework to generate a temporally tailored regularization functional, allowing accurate modeling of complex physical phenomena in ultrasound propagation and providing a significant advantage over traditional regularizations in QAM imaging. The effectiveness of the proposed framework in enhancing resolution is demonstrated through both qualitative and quantitative analyses of experimental 2-D parameter maps obtained from 250- and 500-MHz QAM systems, alongside comparisons with a standard framework. Our framework demonstrates superior performance in recovering fine and subtle details, enhancing the spatial resolution of QAM maps by 38.2%–39.5%, surpassing the state-of-the-art framework, which achieved only 13.4%–26.1% improvement, and shows notable visual improvements in spatial details when compared to histology images.
{"title":"Enhancing 3-D Radio Frequency Data in Quantitative Acoustic Microscopy Using Quantum-Driven Prior at 250 MHz and 500 MHz","authors":"Sayantan Dutta;Jonathan Mamou","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3576239","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3576239","url":null,"abstract":"Quantitative acoustic microscopy (QAM) uses ultrahigh-frequency ultrasound (>200 MHz) to create 2-D maps of acoustic and mechanical properties of tissue at microscopic resolutions (<inline-formula> <tex-math>$lt 8 ~mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula>m). Despite significant advancements in QAM, the spatial resolution of current systems, operating at 250 and 500 MHz, may remain insufficient for certain biomedical applications. However, developing a QAM system with finer resolution by using higher-frequency transducers is costly and necessitates skilled operators, and these systems are more sensitive to the outside environment (e.g., vibrations and temperature). This study extends a resolution enhancement framework by proposing a generalized 3-D approach for processing QAM radio frequency (RF) data. The framework utilizes a quantum-based adaptive denoiser, DeQuIP, implemented as a regularization-prior (RED-prior) to enhance QAM maps. Key contributions include temporal hyperparameter optimization, accelerated algorithm integration, and application of quantum interaction theory. DeQuIP employs quantum wave functions, derived from the acquired data, as adaptive transformations that function as an RED-prior. This enables the framework to generate a temporally tailored regularization functional, allowing accurate modeling of complex physical phenomena in ultrasound propagation and providing a significant advantage over traditional regularizations in QAM imaging. The effectiveness of the proposed framework in enhancing resolution is demonstrated through both qualitative and quantitative analyses of experimental 2-D parameter maps obtained from 250- and 500-MHz QAM systems, alongside comparisons with a standard framework. Our framework demonstrates superior performance in recovering fine and subtle details, enhancing the spatial resolution of QAM maps by 38.2%–39.5%, surpassing the state-of-the-art framework, which achieved only 13.4%–26.1% improvement, and shows notable visual improvements in spatial details when compared to histology images.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 8","pages":"1119-1133"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144215622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-02DOI: 10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3573143
Laura May Davis;David Q. Le;Santiago Martinez-Correa;Misun Hwang
In imaging the neonatal brain, overcoming the diffraction limit of conventional ultrasound is required to achieve images of sufficient spatial resolution. Super-resolution imaging uses ultrasound localization microscopy to image inert microbubble contrast at high frame rates, allowing exquisite detail and flow information on intracranial vessels. While currently more common in research settings, super-resolution imaging is beginning to see selective clinical use. In contrast, advanced Doppler techniques, which do not require contrast, offer flow imaging far better than that of conventional Doppler and are readily available in the clinical setting. We discuss the pros and cons of both modalities and the promising applications of both in the clinical setting with a series of case examples.
{"title":"Microvascular Ultrasound Imaging in the Neonatal Brain: From Advanced Doppler to Super-Resolution","authors":"Laura May Davis;David Q. Le;Santiago Martinez-Correa;Misun Hwang","doi":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3573143","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TUFFC.2025.3573143","url":null,"abstract":"In imaging the neonatal brain, overcoming the diffraction limit of conventional ultrasound is required to achieve images of sufficient spatial resolution. Super-resolution imaging uses ultrasound localization microscopy to image inert microbubble contrast at high frame rates, allowing exquisite detail and flow information on intracranial vessels. While currently more common in research settings, super-resolution imaging is beginning to see selective clinical use. In contrast, advanced Doppler techniques, which do not require contrast, offer flow imaging far better than that of conventional Doppler and are readily available in the clinical setting. We discuss the pros and cons of both modalities and the promising applications of both in the clinical setting with a series of case examples.","PeriodicalId":13322,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control","volume":"72 7","pages":"879-888"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144208443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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