Validation of a Software-Defined 100-Gb/s RDMA Streaming Architecture for Ultrafast Optoacoustic and Ultrasound Imaging

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel software-defined data acquisition architecture for ultrafast optoacoustic and ultrasound imaging, enabling high-speed, continuous raw data streaming with scalable channel support, facilitating clinical translation.

Contribution

It introduces a 100-Gb/s RDMA streaming architecture combining wideband analog front-ends and FPGA-based processing for ultrafast OA-US imaging, supporting large channel counts and continuous data acquisition.

Findings

Achieved 95.6 Gb/s raw data streaming rate.

Validated architecture with a 16-channel prototype.

Confirmed scalability up to 256 channels.

Abstract

Optoacoustic (OA) imaging has emerged as a powerful investigation tool, with demonstrated applicability in oncology, neuroscience, and cardiovascular biology. However, its clinical translation is limited with the existing OA systems, which often rely on bulky and expensive acquisition hardware mainly optimized for pulse-echo ultrasound (US) imaging. Despite the fact that OA imaging has different requirements for receive bandwidths and timing synchronization with external laser sources, there is a strong need for unified OA-US imaging platforms, as pulse-echo US remains the standard tool for visualizing soft tissues. To address these challenges, we propose a new data acquisition architecture for ultrafast OA and US imaging that fully covers the requirements for large channel counts, wide bandwidth, and software-defined operation. LtL combines state-of-the-art wideband analog front-ends, a Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC integrating FPGA fabric with an Application Processing Unit, and a 100 GbE Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) backend enabling raw-data streaming at up to 95.6 Gb/s. The architecture avoids local buffers followed by burst transfers, which commonly constrain sustainable frame rate and recording intervals, thus achieving true continuous and sustained streaming of raw data. We validate the core elements of the LtL architecture using a 16-channel demonstration system built from commercial evaluation boards. We further verify the signal chain for up to 256-channel scalability, confirming the wide bandwidth capabilities to support state-of-the-art data transmission speeds.