Imaging tissues and organs behind obstacles using an ultrasound array transducer

A method for imaging tissues behind obstacles comprising following steps:

• (1) utilizing an ultrasound array transducer that includes at least four active elements and collecting a data sample of an ultrasound beam using the transducer;
• (2) transmitting the data sample of the ultrasound beam of step (1) into image contributions along an impulse response curve in an output spatial image domain, each point on the impulse response curve has distinct values of attributes;
• (3) determining a value of a unique attribute for the each point on the impulse response curve, and binning the each point on the impulse response curve by the value of the unique attribute;
• (4) summing the value of the unique attribute in each bin for the each point on the impulse response curve into a corresponding partial image volume;
• (5) repeating steps (2)-(4) for all data samples of all ultrasound beams to obtain a plurality of partial image volumes;
• (6) generating common image point gathers by sorting the partial image volumes in increasing or decreasing value of the unique attribute;
• after generating the common image point gathers, scanning amplitude variations on each common image point gather and determining dim zones on the each common image point gather;
• and excluding or weighting down the dim zones in the common image point gathers or excluding or weighting down the dim zones in subsequent coherent compounding of the partial image volumes;
• and
• (7) obtaining an image of the tissues by stacking the common image point gathers,
• wherein the dim zones are caused by the obstacles.