Adaptive clutter filter in 2-D color flow imaging based on in vivo I/Q signal

Color flow imaging has been well applied in clinical diagnosis. For the high quality color flow images, clutter filter is important to separate the Doppler signals from blood and tissue. Traditional clutter filters, such as finite impulse response, infinite impulse response and regression filters, were applied, which are based on the hypothesis that the clutter signal is stationary or tissue moves slowly. However, in realistic clinic color flow imaging, the signals are non-stationary signals because of accelerated moving tissue. For most related papers, simulated RF signals are widely used without in vivo I/Q signal. Hence, in this paper, adaptive polynomial regression filter, which is down mixing with instantaneous clutter frequency, was proposed based on in vivo carotid I/Q signal in realistic color flow imaging. To get the best performance, the optimal polynomial order of polynomial regression filter and the optimal polynomial order for estimation of instantaneous clutter frequency respectively were confirmed. Finally, compared with the mean blood velocity and quality of 2-D color flow image, the experiment results show that adaptive polynomial regression filter, which is down mixing with instantaneous clutter frequency, can significantly enhance the mean blood velocity and get high quality 2-D color flow image.