© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Recently, minimum variance beamforming (MV BF) has been actively investigated as a method to improve the performance of an ultrasound system beamformer, especially in terms of both the lateral and contrast resolution. However, since the inverse spatial covariance matrix must be calculated, a severe problem with the method is the prohibitive computational complexity. Among numerous attempts to overcome the problem, notable ones are the fast MV BF method based on principal component analysis and beam space adaptive beamforming. The two are similar in transforming an original signal in the element space to the other domain using an orthonormal basis matrix and approximating the covariance matrix with dimensionality reduction in the transformed domain, hence simplifying the inversion of the matrix. A new method that uses the Legendre polynomial as the basis matrix for such transformation is proposed. The efficacy of the proposed method is verified through Field II simulation. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method is better than or almost equal to the above two methods in the approximation error and the lateral response.
References
-
-
1)
-
4. Kim, K., Park, S., Kim, J., Park, S.-B., Bae, M.: ‘A fast minimum variance beamforming method using principal component analysis’, IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 2014, 61, (6), pp. 930–945 (doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2014.2989).
-
2)
-
18. Jensen, J.A.: ‘Field: a program for simulating ultrasound systems’, Med. Biol. Eng. Comput., 1996, 34, pp. 351–353 (doi: 10.1007/BF02520003).
-
3)
-
3. Nilsen, C., Hafizovic, I.: ‘Beamspace adaptive beamforming for ultrasound imaging’, IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 2009, 56, (10), pp. 2187–2197 (doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2009.1301).
-
4)
-
5. Torp, H.: ‘Clutter rejection filters in color flow imaging: a theoretical approach’, IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 1997, 44, (2), pp. 417–424 (doi: 10.1109/58.585126).
-
5)
-
1. Synnevåg, J.-F., Austeng, A., Holm, S.: ‘Adaptive beamforming applied to medical ultrasound imaging’, IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 2007, 54, (8), pp. 1606–1613 (doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2007.431).
-
6)
-
2. Synnevåg, J.-F., Austeng, A., Holm, S.: ‘Benefits of minimum variance beamforming in medical ultrasound imaging’, IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, 2009, 56, (9), pp. 1868–1879 (doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2009.1263).
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1049/el.2014.2047
Related content
content/journals/10.1049/el.2014.2047
pub_keyword,iet_inspecKeyword,pub_concept
6
6
Correspondence
This article has following corresponding article(s):
interview
Legendre polynomial based fast minimum variance beamforming method for medical ultrasound systems