Ultrasound imaging system using coherence estimation of a beamformed signal
AssigneeUniversity of Southern California
InventorsJesse Tong-Pin Yen, Yang Lou
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Improved ultrasound imaging using coherence estimation of a beamformed signal. Ultrasound imaging using coherence estimation of a beamformed signal as described herein may be performed by applying a plurality of filters to the beamformed signal to generate a plurality of filtered beamformed signals. Normalized cross-correlation may be performed on a plurality of pairs of filtered beamformed signals to determine a coherence coefficient corresponding to each pixel of an ultrasound image, which may be used to construct a coherence estimation ultrasound image.
Claims20
A method of ultrasound imaging using coherence estimation, comprising:
- receiving, by a processor, a plurality of beamformed ultrasound signals;
- assembling, by the processor, the plurality of beamformed ultrasound signals into an RF signal matrix;
- generating, by the processor, at least two filtered RF signal matrices using a plurality of spatial filters and the RF signal matrix;
- performing, by the processor, a normalized cross-correlation on at least one pair of the filtered RF signal matrices to determine at least one cross-correlation coefficient corresponding to each pixel in an image of a target;
- determining, by the processor, a coherence coefficient using the at least one cross-correlation coefficient;
- constructing, by the processor, a coherence estimation image of the target using the plurality of coherence coefficients corresponding to each pixel;
- and
- displaying, by the processor and on a display, the coherence estimation image of the target.
A computer readable medium storing program instructions, the program instructions comprising program instructions to configure at least one processor to:
- receive a plurality of beamformed ultrasound signals and assemble the plurality of beamformed ultrasound signals into an RF signal matrix;
- generate a plurality of filtered RF signal matrices by applying a plurality of spatial filters to the RF signal matrix;
- perform normalized cross-correlation on a plurality of pairs of the filtered RF signal matrices to determine a plurality of cross-correlation coefficients corresponding to each pixel in the image of the target;
- determine a coherence coefficient using the cross-correlation coefficients;
- construct a coherence estimation image of the target using the coherence coefficients corresponding to each pixel;
- and
- display the coherence estimation image of the target on a display.
An ultrasound imaging system using coherence estimation, comprising:
- a display screen;
- an ultrasound probe having an array of transducer elements and configured to:
- transmit a beamformed ultrasound signal towards an imaging target using the array of transducer elements,
- receive a plurality of reflected ultrasound signals using the array of transducer elements, and
- beamform the plurality of received ultrasound signals using the array of transducer elements;
- a memory configured to store data;
- and
- a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to:
- assemble the plurality of beamformed ultrasound signals into an RF signal matrix,
- generate a plurality of filtered RF signal matrices using a plurality of spatial filters and the RF signal matrix,
- perform normalized cross-correlation on a plurality of pairs of the filtered RF signal matrices to determine a plurality of cross-correlation coefficients corresponding to each pixel in an image of the imaging target,
- determine a coherence coefficient corresponding to each pixel in the ultrasound image of the target using the plurality of cross-correlation coefficients,
- construct a coherence estimation image of the target using the coherence coefficients corresponding to each pixel, and
- display the coherence estimation image on the display screen.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.