Subaperture processing for ultrasonic imaging

Ultrasonic subaperture processing using aperture synthesis and beam space interpolation is presented. The number of beam lines scanning the image plane for a given transmit-receive subaperture combination is chosen according to the spatial sampling criteria for that combination. On each beam line, echo signals over the entire array are collected through electronic multiplexing of array channels, where the transmit subaperture at the transducer center is fired K successive times, with K equal to the number of nonoverlapping receive subapertures. For every receive subaperture, the number of beam lines is increased through digital interpolation using a linear filter with spatial frequency band associated with the subaperture. Interpolated beam lines from all receive subapertures are then added to obtain a high resolution sector image. The efficiency of subaperture processing for different system configurations is tested on experimental rf data acquired from two different phantoms using a 3.5 MHz, 128-element transducer array. The proposed subaperture processing reduces the number of firings for data acquisition, and thus allows real-time imaging with very low susceptibility to motion artifacts.