Phase aberration correction in medical ultrasound using speckle brightness as a quality factor

Medical ultrasonic images are degraded by tissues with inhomogeneous acoustic velocities. The resulting phase aberration raises the off-peak response of the imaging system's point spread function (PSF), decreasing dynamic range. In extreme cases, multiple images of a single target are displayed. Phase aberration may become a limiting factor to image quality as ultrasonic frequency and aperture size are increased in order to improve spatial resolution. A method is proposed to correct for unknown phase aberration, which uses speckle brightness as a quality factor. The phase delays of a phased array transducer are modified, element by element, to maximize mean speckle brightness in a region of interest. The technique proposed is analogous to the correction technique used by Muller and Buffington [J. Opt. Soc. Am. 64 (9), 1200-1209 (1974)] to adaptively focus incoherent optical telescopes. The method is demonstrated using a computer model with several different simulated aberration profiles. With this model, mean speckle brightness is calculated using the two-dimensional PSF. Experiments have also been conducted in which speckle brightness is shown to increase as the phase delays of an ultrasonic scanner are modified in order to compensate for a rippled aberrating layer made of silicone rubber. The characteristics of the proposed method, and the possibility of employing it clinically to correct for unknown inhomogeneities in acoustic velocity, are discussed.     

Static point-spread function correction dominating higher-order speckle terms at high adaptive correction

At high adaptive correction, the randomly shifting speckles familiar in conventional astronomical imaging become organized into patterns with distinct regularities that may permit partial suppression of the image noise they produce. Mathematically, the phase exponential in the Fourier-optical imaging expression may be expanded in a Taylor series in remnant phase phi, which is small at very high correction, leading to a perturbed point-spread function (PSF) that is a sum of algebraic terms, each of distinct spatial symmetry. At sufficiently high correction, one need deal with only a few of the lowest-order terms. A first-order expansion gives an ideal PSF plus two terms, linear and quadratic, describing the two brightest, physically most relevant kinds of speckle. A second-order expansion gives three new terms, the brightest of which is primarily a static correction to the PSF, with a much smaller true speckle component. When the correction is great enough to isolate individual speckle terms, the two terms from the first-order expansion alone determine the essential physics. A general observational strategy is outlined for reducing speckle noise in highly corrected companion searches, dominated by a few speckle terms of definite spatial symmetry.     

Aberration-correction results from a segmented microelectromechanical deformable mirror and a refractive lenslet array

Quadratic aberration is successfully corrected with a segmented microelectromechanical deformable mirror in conjunction with a refractive lenslet array. Use of the lenslet array greatly improves the effective fill factor of the correcting element. Experimental results show correction approaching the diffraction limit for an extreme spherical aberration.     

Estimation of ultrasound wave aberration with signals from random scatterers

A method for estimating waveform aberration from random scatterers in medical ultrasound imaging has been derived and its properties investigated using two-dimensional simulations. The method uses a weighted and modified cross-spectrum in order to estimate arrival time and amplitude fluctuations from received signals. The arrival time and amplitude fluctuations were used in a time delay, and a time delay and amplitude aberration correction filter, for evaluation of the retransmitted aberration corrected signal. Different types of aberration have been used in this study. First, aberration was concentrated on the plane of the transmitting/receiving array. Second, aberration was generated with a distributed aberrator. Both conditions emulated aberration from the human abdominal wall. Results show that for the concentrated aberrator, arrival time and amplitude fluctuations were estimated in close agreement with reference values. The reference values were obtained from simulations with a point source in the focal point of the array. Correction of the transmitted signal with a time delay, and a time delay and amplitude filter produced approximately equal correction as with point source estimates. For the distributed aberrator, the estimator performance degraded significantly. Arrival time and amplitude fluctuations deviated from reference values, leading to a limited correction of the retransmitted signal.     

部分阵元参考法校正超声成像相位畸变的仿真研究

本文应用互相关技术在阵元接收射频信号噪比不同情况下，对部分阵元参考法校正超声成像位畸变进行了仿真实验。     

利用回波相干性的医学超声成像相位畸变校正方法

为了提高相位畸变条件下的医学超声成像的横向分辨率和对比度,提出了一种利用回波信号相干性的校正方法。首先给出平均相干系数的概念,并将其作为相位误差校正的度量,然后通过最大化平均相干系数逐步校正各个通道的延时误差,最后再利用经过校正的数据计算出一组新的相干系数并对回波信号进行加权优化,从而得到最终用于成像的数据。对点散射目标及斑散射目标的仿真结果分别显示,利用所提出的方法横向分辨率提高了约0.24 mm,对比度提高了约18 dB,且要优于邻近阵元互相关方法和相干系数直接加权的处理方法。利用回波相干性的相位畸变校正方法结合了相位误差校正和加权处理的优点,可以有效地改善医学超声成像的质量。      

Aberration correction and its automatic control in scanning electron microscopes

An automatic aberration correction method has been implemented in scanning electron microscopes (SEM). Necessity of the automatic aberration correction is discussed. The procedure of the automatic aberration correction is explained in detail, where deconvolution techniques are used in order to extract probe information from SEM images. Due to the precise digitization and the usage of proper combinations of correction fields, linearity has been found between the amplitude of each aberration and the corresponding field strength. Experimental results are shown which demonstrate that the aberrations are corrected automatically by a linear feedback control method. After the automatic aberration correction, the image quality has been improved drastically.     

Beamforming correction for dipole measurement using two-dimensional microphone arrays

In this paper, a beamforming correction for identifying dipole sources by means of phased microphone array measurements is presented and implemented numerically and experimentally. Conventional beamforming techniques, which are developed for monopole sources, can lead to significant errors when applied to reconstruct dipole sources. A previous correction technique to microphone signals is extended to account for both source location and source power for two-dimensional microphone arrays. The new dipole-beamforming algorithm is developed by modifying the basic source definition used for beamforming. This technique improves the previous signal correction method and yields a beamformer applicable to sources which are suspected to be dipole in nature. Numerical simulations are performed, which validate the capability of this beamformer to recover ideal dipole sources. The beamforming correction is applied to the identification of realistic aeolian-tone dipoles and shows an improvement of array performance on estimating dipole source powers.     

A coherence-based phase aberration correction method in medical ultrasound

A coherence-based correction method was proposed in order to improve the lateral resolution and enhance the contrast of medical ultrasound imaging in the presence of phase aberration.The averaged coherence factor was proposed at first and used as a metric to evaluate phase aberration correction.By maximizing the averaged coherence factor,the time delay parameter of each channel was adjusted.A new set of coherence factors was calculated and the corrected data was optimized to form the final B-mode image.The simulations on point targets and a cyst phantom showed that the proposed method outperformed the nearest neighboring cross correlation method and conventional coherence-weighting method,and the lateral resolution and contrast ratio was improved by approximately 0.24mm and 18dB respectively.The proposed method combined the advantages of phase error correction and coherence-weighting,which could improve imaging qualities effectively in medical ultrasound.     

Optimisation using measured Green's function for improving spatial coherence in acoustic measurements

Aberrating materials can degrade acoustic measurements by distorting the acoustic wavefront and causing acoustic speckle (as opposed to speckle noise which is a manifestation of coherent backscatter). The amplitude and phase fluctuations associated with acoustic speckle can introduce considerable measurement uncertainty which is difficult to deal with. This paper demonstrates a new technique which optimises the spatial distribution of the generation of the ultrasound to compensate for the aberration. This technique uses experimentally measured Green's functions to allow the calculation of the field resulting from the generation wavefront during optimisation. The technique is used to improve the accuracy of velocity measurements in a steel sample using 82 MHz SAW waves. This is achieved by optimising for improved spatial coherence in the measurement region which suppresses the speckle noise. Experimental evidence of acoustic aberration arising from grain structure is shown for steel and aluminium and the measured Green's function optimisation technique is shown to overcome the resulting acoustic speckle. The technique was performed using the Adaptive Optical Scanning Acoustic Microscope (AOSAM) at Nottingham University, UK.     

The gated integration technique for the accurate measurement of the autocorrelation function of speckle intensities scattered from random phase screens

A new approach based on the gated integration technique is proposed for the accurate measurement of the autocorrelation function of speckle intensities scattered from a random phase screen. The Boxcar used for this technique in the acquisition of the speckle intensity data integrates the photoelectric signal during its sampling gate open, and it repeats the sampling by a preset number, m. The average analog of the m samplings output by the Boxcar enhances the signal-to-noise ratio by , because the repeated sampling and the average make the useful speckle signals stable, while the randomly varied photoelectric noise is suppressed by . In the experiment, we use an analog-to-digital converter module to synchronize all the actions such as the stepped movement of the phase screen, the repeated sampling, the readout of the averaged output of the Boxcar, etc. The experimental results show that speckle signals are better recovered from contaminated signals, and the autocorrelation function with the secondary maximum is obtained, indicating that the accuracy of the measurement of the autocorrelation function is greatly improved by the gated integration technique.     

Iteration of transmit-beam aberration correction in medical ultrasound imaging

Simulations of iterative transmit-beam aberration correction using a time-delay and amplitude filter have been performed to study the convergence of such a process. Aberration in medical ultrasonic imaging is usually modeled by arrival-time and amplitude fluctuations concentrated on the transducer array. This is an approximation of the physical aberration process, and may be applied to correct the transmitted signal using a time-delay and amplitude filter. Estimation of such a filter has proven difficult in the presence of severe aberration. Presented here is an iterative approach, whereby a filter estimate is applied to correct the transmit-beam. This beam induces acoustic backscatter better suited for arrival-time and amplitude estimation, thus facilitating an improved filter estimate. Two correlation-based methods for estimating arrival-time and amplitude fluctuations in received echoes from random scatterers were employed. Aberration was introduced using eight models emulating aberration produced by the human abdominal wall. Results show that only a few iterations are needed to obtain corrected transmit-beam profiles comparable to those of an ideal aberration correction filter. Furthermore, a previously developed focusing criterion is found to quantify the convergence accurately.     

基于高速移动通信的虚拟天线阵列理论研究

在高速移动通信中, 多普勒频移对通信性能产生严重的影响, 通常需要对接收信号的多普勒频移进行估计并进行补偿. 本文研究在对单个天线接收的高速移动通信信号进行频移估计和补偿的基础上产生多路无频偏的信号, 并虚拟为天线阵列的输出以提高系统的接收增益. 首先讨论了“均匀时间采样”和“均匀相位采样”的关系, 并根据两者之间的关系提出了补偿多普勒频移和虚拟天线阵列的算法, 即对采样信号进行插值、均匀相位抽取以后, 再进行均匀时间采样. 然后分析了算法对高速移动通信系统性能的改善作用, 并提出了算法的硬件实现结构. 通过数值仿真验证了算法的干扰抑制能力和误码性能, 结果表明本文提出的虚拟天线阵列算法能够改善飞机、高铁上的高速移动通信系统的性能.     

Ultrasonic guided wave focusing by a generalized phased array

Ultrasonic guided wave focusing by a generalized phased array is studied based on dispersion curves in a multi-layered medium. The different phase of the guided waves with different frequency is added on the excitation signal on each element of the transducer array for focusing. This can be realized by designing a proper excitation pulse based on the dispersion curves of the guided waves for each of the transducer array elements. The numerical simulation results show that the guided waves with different modes, different frequency components, and from different elements of the transducer array can all be focused at the target and focusing is achieved.     

Guided wave arrays for high resolution inspection

The paper describes a general approach for processing data from a guided wave transducer array on a plate-like structure. The raw data set from such an array contains time-domain signals from each transmitter-receiver combination. The technique is based on linear superposition of signals in the frequency domain with some amplitude and phase factors and can be applied to any array geometry and any types of array elements. The problem of finding optimal coefficients, which allow the best resolution to be achieved with the minimum number of array elements, is investigated. It is shown that improvements in resolution are obtained at the expense of sensitivity to noise. A method of quantifying this sensitivity is presented. Results are shown that illustrate the application of the technique to a linear array and an array of circular geometry (containing a single ring of elements). Experimental data obtained from a guided wave array containing electromagnetic acoustic transducer elements for exciting and detecting the S0 Lamb wave mode in a 5-mm-thick aluminum plate are processed with different algorithms and the results are discussed. Generalization of the technique for the case of multimode media is suggested.     

新型轻量化可见光光谱仪成像系统研究与分析

利用衍射光学元件消色差和对波面进行任意整形及自由曲面光学元件校正像差的特性,将衍射光学元件和自由曲面光学元件应用于传统可见光光谱成像光谱仪成像系统中,提出了一种新型的可见光光谱成像光谱仪成像系统,基于衍射光学元件独特的负色散特性,用一片折射/衍射混合光学元件代替传统的双胶合透镜来实现消色差,基于自由曲面光学元件的多自由度特性,在系统中引入两个自由曲面光学元件对系统中的像差进行有针对性的校正,针对具体的设计实例给出了详细的设计步骤,设计结果表明,在相同的参数指标前提下,新型系统仅为4片式结构,和传统系统相比,重量减轻22.9%,总长缩短26.6%,最大口径减小30.6%,调制传递函数值最大提升为1.0视场,调制传递函数值提高0. 35,最大畸变减小1.6%,最大垂轴像差减小56.4%,轴向色差减小59.3%,新型系统各方面的性能都得到了较大的改进,为现代高性能、轻小型可见光光谱成像光谱仪成像系统设计提供了一种新的途径。     

基于FPGA的DBF多波束中频接收系统的设计与实现

数字波束形成(DBF)阵列能够充分利用阵列天线所获取的空间信息,通过信号处理技术使波束获得超分辨率和低旁瓣的性能,它由天线阵元、射频下变频模块、AD采样、中频接收系统及上位机控制器组成。对中频接收系统进行数字波束形成的具体方案进行讨论,对多路接收和AD量化一致性造成的各通道间失配提出了幅相校正的解决方案,详细分析了研制中的关键技术。实验结果表明所设计的DBF多波束中频接收系统可有效实现通道间失配的校正,并实现精确的波束赋形功能。     

Studies of transverse chromatic aberration based on individual eye model

Two kinds of individual eye models, with and without involving the angle between visual axis and optical axis, are constructed according to the measurements of the corneal surfaces, the optical axis lengths and wavefront aberrations. The constructed eye models are then used to investigate the properties of the transverse chromatic aberration (TCA) and its influence on visual performance. The statistical distributions of the horizontal TCA, vertical TCA and the absolute magnitude of the TCA over the spectrum from 470 to 650 nm are provided, respectively. The variations of TCA with wavelength as referring to the central wavelength of 555 nm for five subjects are also provided. Then we evaluate the impact of TCA on image performance in comparison with longitudinal chromatic aberration (LCA). It is shown that LCA is more detrimental than foveal TCA in image quality. It is found that, while LCA was corrected well, the foveal TCA is simultaneously corrected. Finally, we investigate the correction of peripheral TCA with an achromatizing element. The correction of peripheral TCA of human eye strongly depends on the location of the achromatizing element, and with the element in front of the eye, the peripheral TCA cannot be corrected.     

浅海非均匀水平阵宽带声场信号无源孔径扩展

大孔径水平阵对于浅海低频水声物理实验研究和应用至关重要,然而受实际情况制约,通常使用的水平基阵孔径十分有限,通过孔径扩展处理来扩展基阵孔径是一条重要途径。传统的无源孔径扩展方法是建立在均匀线阵、匀速相对运动和相干窄带连续信号的基础上的,难以适用于非均匀阵以及非连续宽带声源的情况。针对这些问题,提出了非均匀阵宽带声场信号的无源孔径扩展方法。使用静止布设在海底的非均匀水平短阵接收运动声源重复发射的宽带声信号,先开展均匀空间插值,然后在阵元域和波束域进行宽带扩展孔径处理。仿真和实验结果表明,在水深约70 m的浅海波导环境中,纵向间隔27.5 m的2个阵元接收20~200 Hz宽带声场,其空间插值结果与真值的相关系数大于0.99,说明宽带声场插值方法的合理性。在水平非均匀、纵向孔径250 m的短阵接收声场无法分析简正波频散特征的情况下,仿真和实验数据经过宽带无源孔径扩展处理得到孔径大于1 km的均匀线阵的声场,能高分辨区分各阶简正波,证明所提方法是有效的。      

采用色差先验约束的像差校正技术

本文通过分析自然图像的边缘3个通道之间的关联性,提出"同一物体的边缘在3个颜色通道应处于相同位置"的色差先验约束,该约束在数学上近似为各通道的相对导数相等,基于此色差先验约束,建立了一种新的像差校正模型即图像解卷积模型,并给出了基于交替方向乘子法的模型求解算法。实验结果表明:本文的像差校正技术可以提升图像的峰值信噪比10 dB以上,明显优于目前主流的BM3D和YUV算法,并且视觉提升效果明显,基本满足普通光学系统对像差的校正要求。