High-frame-rate volumetric ultrasound imaging using dedicated arrays and deep learning

High-frame-rate volumetric ultrasound imaging using dedicated arrays and deep learning

Ossenkoppele, B.W. (TU Delft ImPhys/Medical Imaging; TU Delft ImPhys/Verweij group)

de Jong, N. (promotor)
Verweij, M.D. (promotor)
van Sloun, R. J. G. (promotor)

Delft University of Technology

2023-06-28

High-frame-rate volumetric ultrasound imaging is highly desired to enable novel clinical ultrasound applications. However, realizing high-quality volumetric ultrasound imaging at a high frame rates (>500 Hz) is challenging. Keeping the cable count and data rate of the transducer device at a realistic level without sacrificing image quality to an undesirable extend means that a dedicated design with carefully chosen trade-offs is required and powerful processing of the received signals is desired. This thesis describes the development of a high-frame-rate 3D ultrasound transducer through dedicated transducer design and explores the use of deep learning-based beamforming to achieve high-quality 3D imaging. Specifically, the first part of this thesis focuses on the development of an imaging scheme and the realization and testing of two prototype transducers for high-frame-rate 3D intracardiac echography (3D-ICE). The second part of the thesis implements deep learning in the image reconstruction process to improve the image quality of volumetric ultrasound. Deep learning-based beamforming is implemented and evaluated first for a miniature matrix array, which similar to the 3D-ICE design applies micro-beamforming to achieve cable count reduction and finally for a spiral array which uses a sparse distribution of transducer channels.

ultrasound
3D
ICE
high frame rate
matrix transducer array
deep learning
beamforming

https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:904477fe-5ac7-41a9-806a-f6178f8ba11c

978-94-6366-701-2

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

© 2023 B.W. Ossenkoppele