Component Based Modeling of Ultrasound Signals

TL;DR

This paper introduces a component-based model for ultrasound signals that decomposes raw data into background and reflectors, enabling improved image quality and significant data compression.

Contribution

It presents a novel decomposition method for ultrasound signals, enhancing image quality and achieving over twenty-fold data compression.

Findings

Effective suppression of side lobe artifacts

Over twenty-fold reduction in data size

Retention of image quality after compression

Abstract

This work proposes a component based model for the raw ultrasound signals acquired by the transducer elements. Based on this approach, before undergoing the standard digital processing chain, every sampled raw signal is first decomposed into a smooth background signal and a strong reflectors component. The decomposition allows for a suited processing scheme to be adjusted for each component individually. We demonstrate the potential benefit of this approach in image enhancement by suppressing side lobe artifacts, and in improvement of digital data compression. Applying our proposed processing schemes to real cardiac ultrasound data, we show that by separating the two components and compressing them individually, over twenty-fold reduction of the data size is achieved while retaining the image contents.