Systems and methods for continuous ultrafast ultrasound beamforming with programmable logic

A method for ultrafast ultrasound imaging comprising:

• acquiring radio frequency (RF) ultrasound data from a subject with an ultrasound system using a plane wave imaging acquisition, the ultrasound system including a field programmable gate array (FPGA) coupled to a memory, wherein the memory has stored thereon a delay profile matrix, wherein each row of the delay profile matrix comprises a delay profile corresponding to a different depth;
• loading a delay profile from the delay profile matrix to a memory buffer of the FPGA, wherein the delay profile corresponds to a particular depth;
• reading, by the FPGA, a first row of the RF ultrasound data based on a first delay value of the delay profile;
• generating, by the FPGA, beamformed data at the particular depth by beamforming the first row of RF ultrasound data;
• and
• generating an image of the subject based on the beamformed data.