A Delayed-Excitation Data Acquisition Method for High-Frequency Ultrasound Imaging

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging
• Ultrasound Technology

Background:

• High-frequency ultrasound (HFUS) imaging offers high spatial resolution crucial for small animal research in cardiovascular and cancer studies.
• Traditional HFUS systems require analog-to-digital converters with sampling rates exceeding 120 MHz to meet Nyquist criteria.
• Existing ultrasound systems often operate with lower sampling rates (40-60 MHz), limiting their application in HFUS.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel delayed-excitation method for achieving high-frequency ultrasound imaging.
• To enable HFUS capabilities using conventional ultrasound data acquisition systems with lower sampling rates.
• To validate the efficacy of the proposed method in phantom and ex vivo tissue imaging.

Main Methods:

• A delayed-excitation technique was developed to align ultrasound echo data into high-sampling-rate slots.
• The method was evaluated using wire and tissue-mimicking phantoms for performance assessment.
• In vitro imaging was conducted on a porcine small-intestine specimen and an excised rabbit eyeball.

Main Results:

• The delayed-excitation method successfully facilitated high-frequency ultrasound imaging.
• The technique demonstrated feasibility with a traditional ultrasound sampling system (40-60 MHz).
• Successful imaging of phantoms and biological tissues confirmed the method's practical application.

Conclusions:

• The proposed delayed-excitation method effectively enables high-frequency ultrasound imaging with traditional ultrasound systems.
• This approach overcomes the hardware limitations of conventional ultrasound devices for high-resolution imaging.
• The technique holds potential for advancing small animal research by making HFUS more accessible.