Detection of long bones based on Barker code excited ultrasonic guided waves

Single pulse excited ultrasonic guided wave surfers high attenuation during the propagation in long bones.This results in small amplitude and low signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)of measured signals.Thus,the Barker code excitation is introduced into long bone detection to improve the quality of received signals,due to its efficiency in increasing amplitude and SNR.Both simulation and in vitro experiment were performed,and the results were decoded by the weighted match filter(WMF) and the finite impulse response- least squares inverse filter(FIRLSIF),respectively.The comparison between the results of Barker code excitation and sine pulse excitation was presented.For 13-bit Barker code excitation,WMF produced 13 times larger amplitude than sine pulse excitation,while FIR-LSIF achieved higher peak-sidelobe-level(PSL) of —63.59 dB and better performance in noise suppression.The results show that the Barker code excited guided waves have the potential to be applied to the long bone detection.     

数字式超声内窥成像系统(英文)

The development of a novel push-type ultrasonic endoscope is described in which probe rotation is accomplished by a small motor situated near the transducer. A digital FPGA-based ultrasound imaging system is implemented which uses coded excitation to increase the SNR and penetration depth, with probe rotation accomplished by a small motor situated near the transducer replacing the external motor and the long steel wire used in other ultrasonic endoscopes. The apparatus is tested continuously for 300 hours with no obvious problems. The coded excitation, digital quadrature demodulation imaging system can obtain ultrasonic images of higher quality and more information of the echo is preserved compared with the analog imaging system, because the analog digital conversion is moved to the first step of the signal processing.The digital imaging system possesses a higher SNR resulting in a sharp image. Locating the motor near the probe improves the consistency of rotational speed in comparison with external guide-wire rotation, and increases the image quality and life-span of these devices.     

Difference-frequency ultrasound generation from microbubbles under dual-frequency excitation

The difference-frequency (DF) ultrasound generated by using parametric effect promises to improve detection depth owing to its low attenuation, which is beneficial for deep tissue imaging. With ultrasound contrast agents infusion, the harmonic components scattered from the microbubbles, including DF, can be generated due to the nonlinear vibration. A theoretical study on the DF generation from microbubbles under the dual-frequency excitation is proposed in formula based on the solution of the RPNNP equation. The optimisation of the DF generation is discussed associated with the applied acoustic pressure, frequency, and the microbubble size. Experiments are performed to validate the theoretical predictions by using a dual-frequency signal to excite microbubbles. Both the numerical and experimental results demonstrate that the optimised DF ultrasound can be achieved as the difference frequency is close to the resonance frequency of the microbubble and improve the contrast-to-tissue ratio in imaging.     

The application of compressed sensing in synthetic transmit aperture medical ultrasound imaging

In synthetic transmit aperture medical ultrasound imaging field,a compressed sensing ultrasound imaging method based on the sparsity in frequency domain is presented in order to reduce huge amount of data and large numbers of receiving channels.First,the sparsity in frequency domain is verified.Then the echo signal is compressively sampled in time-spatial domain based on compressed sensing and the echo signal is reconstructed by solving an optimization problem.Finally the image is made by using the synthetic transmit aperture approach.The experiments based on point target and fetus target are used to verify the proposed method.The MSE,resolution and image quality of reconstructed image and those of original image are compared and analyzed.The results show that only 30%amount of data and 50%of receiving channels were used to implement ultrasound imaging without reducing the quality of image in experiment.The amount of data and the complexity of system are reduced greatly by the proposed method based on compressed sensing.     

Experimental research on sound pulse propagation and channel match in shallow water

Theoretical and experimental research of low frequency pulse compression and channel match in shallow water sound channel were carried out based on 2000-Winter Yellow Sea experiment. Using pulse compression method, signals with high signal to noise ratio (SNR) were received over range of 110 kilometers in the experiment. The SNR gain in the process is consistent with the theoretical prediction. The experimental measurement indicated that the channel is highly coherent over a length of 500 s. Channel match method was used to compensate the degradation of pulse compression SNR caused by the multi-path propagation. And the SNR gain in the channel match process can be theoretically predicted. Experimental results show that low frequency pulse compression and channel match method can be used in shallow water sound channel to improve the SNR.     

High-contrast imaging based on wavefront shaping to improve low signal-to-noise ratio photoacoustic signals using superpixel method

Photoacoustic(PA) imaging has drawn tremendous research interest for various applications in biomedicine and experienced exponential growth over the past decade. Since the scattering effect of biological tissue on ultrasound is two-to three-orders magnitude weaker than that of light, photoacoustic imaging can effectively improve the imaging depth.However, as the depth of imaging further increases, the incident light is seriously affected by scattering that the generated photoacoustic signal is very weak and the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) is quite low. Low SNR signals can reduce imaging quality and even cause imaging failure. In this paper, we proposed a new wavefront shaping and imaging method of low SNR photoacoustic signal using digital micromirror device(DMD) based superpixel method. We combined the superpixel method with DMD to modulate the phase and amplitude of the incident light, and the genetic algorithm(GA) was used as the wavefront shaping algorithm. The enhancement of the photoacoustic signal reached 10.46. Then we performed scanning imaging by moving the absorber with the translation stage. A clear image with contrast of 8.57 was obtained while imaging with original photoacoustic signals could not be achieved. The proposed method opens new perspectives for imaging with weak photoacoustic signals.     

Narrowband speech wideband extension algorithm research

To reduce the spectral distortion,a Hidden Markov Model-based narrowband speech bandwidth extension algorithm is presented.Firstly,the parameters which have higher mutual information with wideband envelope were extracted to constitute the feature vector,and then a posterior probability was calculated via the joint probability of the partial observation feature vector sequence and the markov states.Secondly,based on the posterior probability,the wideband envelope was estimated using Bayesian parameter estimation method and minimum mean square error criteria.For estimation of wideband excitation signal,intermediate frequency extension algorithm is proposed based on the harmonic correlation between the low frequency and high frequency.The experimental results show that,compared with the traditional bandwidth extension algorithm based on Hidden Markov Model,the average spectral distortion is reduced by 0.187 dB and the number of speech frame with spectral distortion over10dB is decreased by 34.3%.     

Source location in a wedge waveguide:deconvolution filter experiment

Source location experiments in a wedge waveguide were conducted totest a single channel time domain technique for a known source.The laboratorymeasurements were made in the air wedge having rigid sheet rock boundaries.Thewedge angle was 6.6°.The source transmitted a short oscillatory signal having afrequency band of 3—13 kHz.The distances of the source and receiver from thewedge apex were 1.75m and 3.75m respectively.The Biot-Tolstoy wedge solutionwas used for calculating the source to receiver impulse response.For the geometry,all the arrivals are due to images.The deconvolution filter is used.The output ofthe deconvolution filter is cross correlated with the known input signal.Maps ofpossible source locations are made by(1)assuming a trial source location,(2)computing a theoretical impulse response and the corresponding deconvolution fil-ter,(3)filtering the signal,and(4)mapping the peak absolute maximum of thedeconvolution filter output.The actual source location is correctly mapped.Thereare severa     

An acoustic imaging system of migration technique used in borehole

In order to detect the damage of casing boreholes, an acoustic imaging method with a two-dimensional ultrasonic array was presented. Each element of the array independently emits down ultrasonic waves, the echoes received by all elements are sampled and transmitted to a computer on ground surface, where the dynamic migration method is used to form a 2 or 3-dimensional image of the situation in the borehole. The numerical simulation and experiment are conducted that demonstrate a high imaging accuracy with a small number of elements used in array. Since the delay circuits used in the traditional phased array imaging system is not needed in this system, and all data process could be completed in a ground system. the complexity and the volume of system in borehole may be significantly simplified, which is critical to the borehole instrument.     

Influence exerted by bone-containing target body on thermoacoustic imaging with current injection

Thermoacoustic imaging with current injection(TAI-CI) is a novel imaging technology that couples with electromagnetic and acoustic research, which combines the advantages of high contrast of the electrical impedance tomography and the high spatial resolution of sonography, and therefore has the potential for early diagnosis. To verify the feasibility of TAI-CI for complex bone-containing biological tissues, the principle of TAI-CI and the coupling characteristics of fluid and solid were analyzed. Meanwhile, thermoacoustic(TA) effects for fluid model and fluid–solid coupling model were analyzed by numerical simulations. Moreover, we conducted experiments on animal cartilage, hard bone and biological soft tissue phantom with low conductivity(0.5 S/m). By injecting a current into the phantom, the thermoacoustic signal was detected by the ultrasonic transducer with a center frequency of 1 MHz, thereby the B-scan image of the objects was obtained. The B-scan image of the cartilage experiment accurately reflects the distribution of cartilage and gel, and the hard bone has a certain attenuation effect on the acoustic signal. However, compared with the ultrasonic imaging, the thermoacoustic signal is only attenuated during the outward propagation. Even in this case, a clear image can still be obtained and the images can reflect the change of the conductivity of the gel. This study confirmed the feasibility of TAI-CI for the imaging of biological tissue under the presence of cartilage and the bone. The novel TAI-CI method provides further evidence that it can be used in the diagnosis of human diseases.