Automatic optimization for time gain compensation and dynamic range control in ultrasound diagnostic systems

초음파 진단 기기에서의 시간 이득 보상과 다이나믹 범위 조절을 위한 자동 최적화 알고리즘

For efficient and accurate diagnosis of ultrasound images, the time gain compensation (TGC) and dynamic range (DR) control of the ultrasound echo signal are important. TGC is for compensating the attenuation of the ultrasound echo signal along the depth, and DR is used to control the image contrast. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for finding the optimized values of TGC and DR automatically. For TGC, the degree of compensation is determined along the depth based on the effective attenuation estimation of ultrasound signal. For DR optimization, we introduce a novel cost function on the basis of the characteristics of ultrasound image, which provides the minimum value at the optimal DR. Experiments have been performed by applying the proposed algorithm to a real US imaging system. The results show that the algorithm automatically can determine the values of TGC and DR in realtime so that the subjective quality of the corresponding US image may be good enough for diagnosis.