Estimation and display for vector doppler imaging using plane wave transmissions

A method of producing blood flow velocity vector imagery, comprising:

• emitting at least two unfocused plane wave acoustic signals M at at least two angles, where M is a number of plane wave acoustic signal emissions, to a transducer array into a medium over substantially an entire field of measurement;
• receiving scattered and reflected ultrasonic signals on the transducer array to form received ultrasonic signals in response to the emission;
• processing the received ultrasonic signals to generate extracted information for constructing a blood flow vector velocity signal by:
• wall filtering the extracted information to generate wall-filtered information;
• using the wall-filtered information to form autocorrelation values and Doppler frequency estimates;
• partitioning of a bistatic range-rate model into linear and nonlinear parts;
• and
• solving the partitioned model by the weighted least squares scheme for the blood flow vector velocity signal v corresponding to at least one point in the medium;
• generating blood flow vector velocity signals;
• detecting the presence of blood flow corresponding to a display device pixel by qualifying blood flow vector velocity signals through a series of tests on values of quality metrics produced as byproducts of the blood flow vector velocity estimation procedure;
• and
• generating on a display device blood flow vector velocity imagery from the blood flow vector velocity signals.