Portable acoustic holography systems for therapeutic ultrasound sources and associated devices and methods

A method of characterizing an ultrasound source using acoustic holography, the method comprising:

• obtaining a transducer geometry characteristic, a transducer operation characteristic, and a holography system measurement characteristic,
• instructing a control computer to determine holography measurement parameters;
• based on the holography measurement parameters, scanning a target surface to capture waveform measurements at a plurality of points on the target surface;
• using the waveform measurements to define a measured hologram at the target surface;
• and
• processing the measured hologram to reconstruct at least one characteristic of the ultrasound source,
• wherein processing the measured hologram to reconstruct a characteristic of the ultrasound source comprises using the hologram to define a boundary condition of the ultrasound source.

A method of characterizing an ultrasound source using acoustic holography, the method comprising:

• obtaining a transducer geometry characteristic, a transducer operation characteristic, and a holography system measurement characteristic,
• instructing a control computer to determine holography measurement parameters;
• based on the holography measurement parameters scanning a target surface to capture waveform measurements at a plurality of points on the target surface;
• using the waveform measurements to define a measured hologram at the target surface;
• and
• processing the measured hologram to reconstruct at least one characteristic of the ultrasound source,
• wherein processing the measured hologram to reconstruct a characteristic of the ultrasound source comprises determining at least one of an acoustic output power of the ultrasound source or a radiation force that would occur if an acoustic beam from the ultrasound source impinged on a particular physical target.

A method for calibrating a hydrophone, the method comprising:

• using an uncalibrated hydrophone to measure a hologram for a source operating in continuous-wave mode at a specified output level;
• making a radiation force balance measurement of the source using a physical target;
• using the measured hologram to calculate a radiation force on the physical target as a function of hydrophone sensitivity;
• and
• calculating a hydrophone sensitivity by equating the radiation force balance measurement with the radiation force calculation based on the measured hologram.

A holography system, comprising:

• an ultrasound source;
• a hologram sensor;
• and
• a physical computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon, computer-executable instructions that, if executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
• determining holography measurement parameters;
• receiving data related to a geometry characteristic, an operation characteristic, and a measurement characteristic of the holography system;
• instructing the hologram sensor to measure acoustic waveforms generated by the ultrasound source;
• and
• generating one or more of the acoustic propagation projections, radiation force calculations, or true power calculations based on a combination of the acoustic waveforms and the characteristics.