Impact of aperture, depth, and acoustic clutter on performance of Coherent Multi-Transducer Ultrasound imaging

TL;DR

This study evaluates how aperture size, depth, and acoustic clutter affect the performance of coherent multi-transducer ultrasound imaging (CoMTUS), demonstrating its advantages in resolution and depth imaging through simulations and experiments.

Contribution

It investigates the performance of CoMTUS with discontinuous apertures, highlighting its benefits and limitations compared to standard single-probe ultrasound imaging.

Findings

CoMTUS improves resolution significantly.

Aperture separation can reduce contrast.

Performance remains stable through layered media.

Abstract

Transducers with larger aperture size are desirable in ultrasound imaging to improve resolution and image quality. A coherent multi-transducer ultrasound imaging system (CoMTUS) enables an extended effective aperture through coherent combination of multiple transducers. In this study, the discontinuous extended aperture created by CoMTUS and its performance for deep imaging and through layered-media are investigated by both simulations and experiments. Typical image quality metrics - resolution, contrast and contrast-to-noise ratio - are evaluated and compared with a standard single probe imaging system. Results suggest that, the image performance of CoMTUS depends on the relative spatial location of the arrays. The resulting effective aperture significantly improves resolution, while the separation between the arrays may degrade contrast. For a limited gap in the effective aperture (less than few centimetres), CoMTUS provides benefits to image quality compared to standard single probe imaging system. Overall, CoMTUS shows higher sensitivity and reduced loss of resolution with imaging depth. In general, CoMTUS imaging performance was unaffected when imaging through a layered-medium with different speed of sound values and resolution improved up to 80% at large imaging depths.