Hadamard Encoded Row Column Ultrasonic Expansive Scanning (HERCULES) with Bias-Switchable Row-Column Arrays

TL;DR

HERCULES is a novel ultrasonic imaging technique using bias-switchable arrays and Hadamard encoding to achieve high-resolution 3D imaging beyond traditional limitations, demonstrated through simulation and experimental validation.

Contribution

This work introduces HERCULES, combining bias-switchable arrays with Hadamard encoding for expansive 3D ultrasound imaging, enabling imaging beyond the aperture shadow and large volume visualization.

Findings

Achieved comparable resolution to existing methods

Demonstrated imaging at tens to hundreds of volumes per second

Validated with phantom and tissue imaging

Abstract

Top-Orthogonal-to-Bottom-Electrode (TOBE) arrays, also known as bias-switchable row-column arrays (RCAs), allow for imaging techniques otherwise impossible for non-bias-switachable RCAs. Hadamard Encoded Row Column Ultrasonic Expansive Scanning (HERCULES) is a novel imaging technique that allows for expansive 3D scanning by transmitting plane or cylindrical wavefronts and receiving using Hadamard-Encoded-Read-Out (HERO) to perform beamforming on what is effectively a full 2D synthetic receive aperture. This allows imaging beyond the shadow of the aperture of the RCA array, potentially allows for whole organ imaging and 3D visualization of tissue morphology. It additionally enables view large volumes through limited windows. In this work we demonstrated with simulation that we are able to image at comparable resolution to existing RCA imaging methods at tens to hundreds of volumes per second. We validated these simulations by demonstrating an experimental implementation of HERCULES using a custom fabricated TOBE array, custom biasing electronics, and a research ultrasound system. Furthermore, we assess our imaging capabilities by imaging a commercial phantom, and comparing our results to those taken with traditional RCA imaging methods. Finally, we verified our ability to image real tissue by imaging a xenograft mouse model.