Synthetic Aperture Imaging : Applications In High-Frequency Ultrasound

Synthetic Aperture (SA) is an imaging method that uses the motion of a single-element transducer to synthesize the effect of a larger array transducer. In synthetic aperture ultrasound imaging (SAUI), a single-element transducer which works as both the transmitter and receiver is used to record pulse echoes in a region of interest at multiple, sequential locations. The SA imaging inverse problem is the processing of these signals to form a high-resolution image of the ROI. The aim of this project is to implement SAUI in the frequency domain and incorporate the effects of the beam pattern into image reconstruction algorithm.

The images reconstructed applying the new SA algorithms to the simulated and experimental data demonstrate the effectiveness of some of the proposed methods in improving the lateral resolution beyond the focal point.

The principles, simulated and experimental results, and implementation issues of the new algorithms are described in this thesis.