Ultrasound imaging flow vector velocity estimation with directional transverse oscillation

A method, comprising:

• receiving echo signals at a transducer array that produces receive signals indicative thereof;
• beamforming the received signals by focusing the received signals at a plurality of depths of interest in a lateral direction to produce a single transverse signal at each of the plurality of depths, wherein each single transverse signal is transverse to a propagation direction of a transmitted ultrasound signal;
• transforming, with a processor, the transverse signals for each of the plurality of depths into transformed signals at each of the plurality of depths;
• and
• estimating, with the processor, velocity components for a depth direction and a transverse direction at each of the depths with the transverse signals and the transformed signals.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium encoded with computer readable instructions, which, when executed by a processor of a computing system, causes the processor to:

• generate a single transverse signal from an echo signal at a predetermined depth of interest by focusing the echo signal at the predetermined depth of interest in a lateral direction, wherein the single transverse signal is transverse to a direction of a propagating ultrasound signal;
• generate a quadrature signal from the single transverse signal;
• and
• estimate a velocity component from the single transverse signal and the quadrature signal.