Quantitative full aperture tomography imaging system and method

A quantitative imaging method comprising:

• (a) surrounding a target region with a transmitter and a plurality of receivers;
• (b) transmitting an acoustic pulse from the transmitter to the target region, wherein a transmission location of the transmitter is known relative to the receivers;
• (c) receiving pulse-derived signals at the receivers;
• (d) pre-processing the received pulse-derived signals of each receiver to remove therefrom a directly transmitted component of the acoustic pulse;
• (e) determining from the pre-processed pulse-derived signals a preliminary value for each of a compressibility term and a density term for each point of the target region;
• (f) relocating the transmitter to a different transmission location relative to the target region and repeating steps (b) through (e) for a plurality of different transmission locations encompassing the target region;
• and
• (g) averaging the preliminary values of the respective compressibility and density terms obtained from the different transmission locations, to obtain final values thereof for each point of the target region, whereby the final values represent quantitative image maps of the respective compressibility and density terms of the target region.

A quantitative imaging system comprising:

• a plurality of transducers positionable to surround a target region at known positions relative to each other, with at least one of the transducers capable of transmitting an acoustic pulse toward the target region and a plurality of the transducers capable of receiving pulse-derived temporal data;
• a controller operably connected to the plurality of transducers for selecting different transmission locations encompassing the target region to vary the pulse-derived temporal data received at each receiving transducer;
• a first data processor module for removing from the received pulse-derived temporal data of each receiving transducer a record of the acoustic pulse directly transmitted thereto to produce a set of modified pulse-derived temporal data associated with one of the different transmission locations;
• a second data processor module for determining from each set of modified pulse-derived temporal data a preliminary value for each of a compressibility term and a density term for each point of the target region;
• and
• a third data processor module for averaging the preliminary values of the respective compressibility and density terms obtained from the different transmission locations, to obtain final values thereof for each point of the target region, whereby the final values represent quantitative image maps of the respective compressibility and density terms of the target region.

A quantitative imaging apparatus comprising:

• a transmitter for transmitting an acoustic pulse toward a target region;
• a plurality of receivers for receiving pulse-derived temporal data, wherein the transmitter and the plurality of receivers are positionable to surround the target region at known positions relative to each other;
• a controller for repositioning the transmitter to different transmission locations relative to the target region to vary the pulse-derived temporal data at each receiver;
• and
• a data processor adapted to:
• remove from the pulse-derived temporal data of each receiver a record of the acoustic pulse directly transmitted thereto to produce a set of modified pulse-derived temporal data associated with one of the different transmission locations;
• determine from each set of modified pulse-derived temporal data a preliminary value for each of a compressibility term and a density term for each point of the target region;
• and average the preliminary values of the respective compressibility and density terms obtained from the different transmission locations, to obtain final values thereof for each point of the target region, whereby the final values represent quantitative image maps of the respective compressibility and density terms of the target region.

A quantitative imaging system comprising:

• means for transmitting an acoustic pulse toward a target region from a transmission location;
• means for receiving pulse-derived signals at various receiving locations surrounding the target region to produce temporal data corresponding to the various receiving locations, wherein the positions of the receiving locations are known relative to the transmitting location;
• means for changing the transmission location to a plurality of different transmission locations whereby different pulse-derived temporal data may be received at the various receiving locations;
• first processor means for removing from the pulse-derived temporal data of each receiver a record of the acoustic pulse directly transmitted thereto to produce a set of modified pulse-derived temporal data associated with one of the different transmission locations;
• second processor means for determining from each set of modified pulse-derived temporal data preliminary values for a compressibility term and a density term for each point on the target region;
• and
• third processor means for averaging the preliminary values of the respective compressibility and density terms obtained from the different transmission locations, to obtain final values thereof for each point on the target region, whereby the final values represent quantitative image maps of the respective compressibility and density terms of the target region.

A quantitative imaging system comprising:

• a plurality of transducers forming a target volume therebetween for receiving a target object to be imaged, with at least one of the transducers capable of transmitting an acoustic pulse into the target volume and a plurality of the transducers capable of receiving pulse-derived temporal data;
• a controller operably connected to the plurality of transducers for selecting different transmission locations encompassing the target volume to vary the pulse-derived temporal data received at each receiving transducer;
• a first data processor module for removing from the received pulse-derived temporal data of each receiving transducer a record of the acoustic pulse directly transmitted thereto to produce a set of modified pulse-derived temporal data associated with one of the different transmission locations;
• a second data processor module for determining from each set of modified pulse-derived temporal data a preliminary value for each of a compressibility term and a density term for each point of a target region;
• and
• a third data processor module for averaging the preliminary values of the respective compressibility and density terms obtained from the different transmission locations, to obtain final values thereof for each point of the target region, whereby the final values represent quantitative image maps of the respective compressibility and density terms of the target region.