Ultrasound time-reversal MUSIC imaging with diffraction and attenuation compensation

Time-reversal imaging with multiple signal classification (TR-MUSIC) is an algorithm for imaging point-like scatterers embedded in a homogeneous and non-attenuative medium. We generalize this algorithm to account for the attenuation in the medium and the diffraction effects caused by the finite size of the transducer elements. The generalized algorithm yields higher-resolution images than those obtained with the original TR-MUSIC algorithm. We evaluate the axial and lateral resolutions of the images obtained with the generalized algorithm when noise corrupts the recorded signals and show that the axial resolution is degraded more than the lateral resolution. The TR-MUSIC algorithm is valid only when the number of point-like targets in the imaging plane is fewer than the number of transducer elements used to interrogate the medium. We remedy this shortcoming by dividing the imaging plane into subregions and applying the TR-MUSIC algorithm to the windowed backscattered signals corresponding to each subregion. The images of all subregions are then combined to form the total image. Imaging results of numerical and phantom data show that when the number of scatterers within each subregion is much smaller than the number of transducer elements, the windowing method yields super-resolution images with accurate scatterer localization. We use computer simulations and tissue-mimicking phantom data acquired with a real-time synthetic-aperture ultrasound system to illustrate the algorithms presented in the paper.