Strategies to Obtain Subpitch Precision in Lateral Motion Estimation in Ultrasound Elastography

In elastography, conventional linear array (CLA)-based RF data acquisition provides more accurate displacement measurements in the direction of beam propagation (axial direction) when compared to the perpendicular direction (lateral). Obtaining good quality lateral displacement estimates in ultrasound (US) elastography will lead to several benefits such as obtaining accurate inverse solutions, improving shear strain elastogram quality, getting good quality poroelastograms, and obtaining reliable rotation elastograms. For accomplishing high-precision lateral displacement estimation (LDE), one of the popular methods is by interpolating additional A-lines in between neighboring RF A-lines. We describe a method wherein true RF A-lines (not interpolated) are acquired and augmented at subpitch locations using CLA transducer, instead of interpolating the data, and using this new frame data for further image formation and/or processing to yield better lateral resolution and LDE. We demonstrate the proposed method by translating the US beam of CLA transducer in subpitch range by the following two approaches: 1) actuator-assisted beam translation and 2) electronic translation of subaperture of a CLA by activating odd and even number of consecutive elements sequentially, referred to as electronic beam translation. The performances of the different methods were studied through simulations and experiments on phantoms. The results demonstrate that these methods yield better quality LDE compared to those obtained from interpolation of RF A-lines. These methods may provide affordable ways to obtain subpitch precision LDE using CLA.