Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering (한국정보통신학회논문지)

The Korea Institute of Information and Commucation Engineering (한국정보통신학회)
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Extraction Method of Ultrasound Spectral Information using Phase-Compensation and Weighted Averaging Techniques

위상 보상과 가중치 평균을 이용한 의료 초음파 신호의 주파수 특성 추출 방법

  • Received : 2009.12.21
  • Accepted : 2010.01.12
  • Published : 2010.04.30
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Abstract

Quantitative ultrasound analysis provides fundamental information of various ultrasound parameters using spectral information of the short-gated radiofrequency(RF) data. Therefore, accurate extraction of spectral information from backscattered RF signal is crucial for further analysis of medical ultrasound parameters. In this paper, we propose two techniques for calculating a more accurate power spectrum which are based on the phase-compensation using the normalized cross-correlation to minimize estimation errors due to phase variations, and the weighted averaging technique to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR). The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method estimates better results with 10% smaller estimation variances compared to the conventional methods.

정량적 초음파 분석(Quantitative Ultrasound Analysis)은 반향된 초음파 신호의 짧은 시간 간격의 주파수 성분을 추출하여 개별 초음파 지수의 값을 예측한다. 따라서 반향 신호의 정확한 주파수 특성 추출은 분석의 정확도와 정밀도 향상에 기본이 된다. 본 논문에서는 초음파 지수의 정량적인 예측 및 분석에 이용할 수 있는, 짧은 시간 간격의 반향 신호의 주파수 특성 추출 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 알고리듬은 인접한 반향 초음파 신호간의 위상 차이를 보상하고, 동일 반향 깊이를 가지는 작은 영역의 신호를 가중치 평균함으로써 보다 정확한 주파수 특성을 추출한다. 컴퓨터 모의 실험을 통한 수치 분석 결과, 제안된 알고리듬은 일반적인 주파수 추출 알고리듬보다 정확한 예측 결과를 보였으며, 예측 결과의 정밀도도 10% 이상 향상되었다.

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References

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