Abstract: Diagnostic imaging of deep targets in the body requires sufficient signal amplitude to overcome effects such as attenuation with depth and thermal noise produced in signal reception. Coded excitation provides several strategies to increase the total transmitted energy without exceeding peak amplitude safety limits. Temporal coding has proven particularly effective, but these frequency or amplitude modulation techniques require additional transmit capabilities and often require complex processing to reduce decoding artifacts. An alternative code is presented based on time delays that relies on repeated transmit pulses that can be decoded using spatiotemporal synthetic aperture processing. A 16-pulse code is demonstrated that achieves an 11.1 dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) while maintaining axial resolution and sufficient range lobe performance.

Abstract: Diagnostic imaging of deep targets in the body requires sufficient signal amplitude to overcome effects such as attenuation with depth and thermal noise produced in signal reception. Coded excitation provides several strategies to increase the total transmitted energy without exceeding peak amplitude safety limits. Temporal coding has proven particularly effective, but these frequency or amplitude modulation techniques require additional transmit capabilities and often require complex processing to reduce decoding artifacts. An alternative code is presented based on time delays that relies on repeated transmit pulses that can be decoded using spatiotemporal synthetic aperture processing. A 16-pulse code is demonstrated that achieves an 11.1 dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) while maintaining axial resolution and sufficient range lobe performance.

Abstract: A synthetic aperture ultrasound system includes an ultrasound probe, and an ultrasound signal processor configured to communicate with the ultrasound probe to receive phase and amplitude information from a plurality of ultrasonic echo signals from a corresponding plurality of ultrasound pulses. The synthetic aperture ultrasound system also includes a positioning system configured to communicate with the ultrasound signal processor to provide probe position information. The positioning system is configured to determine a first position and a second position of the ultrasound probe relative to a region of interest. The ultrasound signal processor is further configured to coherently sum, utilizing the probe position information, at least one of the plurality of ultrasonic echo signals from the first position with at least one of the plurality of ultrasonic echo signals from the second position to provide a synthetic aperture that is larger than a physical aperture of the ultrasound probe.

Abstract: A synthetic aperture ultrasound system includes an ultrasound probe, and an ultrasound signal processor configured to communicate with the ultrasound probe to receive phase and amplitude information from a plurality of ultrasonic echo signals from a corresponding plurality of ultrasound pulses. The synthetic aperture ultrasound system also includes a positioning system configured to communicate with the ultrasound signal processor to provide probe position information. The positioning system is configured to determine a first position and a second position of the ultrasound probe relative to a region of interest. The ultrasound signal processor is further configured to coherently sum, utilizing the probe position information, at least one of the plurality of ultrasonic echo signals from the first position with at least one of the plurality of ultrasonic echo signals from the second position to provide a synthetic aperture that is larger than a physical aperture of the ultrasound probe.