• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.31-35
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• 2005

A novel synthetic aperture method for real-time three-way dynamic focusing is proposed, which provides lateral beam patterns represented as the product of Fourier transforms of transmit subaperture, receive subaperture, and a synthetic window function. In the proposed method, all array elements are fired individually and for each firing echo signals are recorded from all elements of a receive subaperture moving along an array with the transmit element. The three-way dynamic focusing is then achieved by employing a synthetic aperture algorithm for two-way dynamic focusing and a synthetic focusing method for transmit dynamic focusing. Both theoretical analysis and computer simulation results show that the proposed method produces ultrasound beams with improved lateral resolution at all depths compared to the conventional phased array imaging and synthetic aperture focusing methods.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.321-330
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• 2001

In this paper, we propose a new synthetic aperture focusing scheme for improving the lateral resolution which is one of the most important factors determining the quality of ultrasound imaging. The proposed scheme enables full round-trip dynamic focusing with approximately limited property. This properties are obtained through transmitting plane waves of which the traveling angle varies with the receive subaperture position, as opposed to stepping the spherical wave source across an array in other synthetic aperture focusing schemes, and employing dynamic focusing in receive. In this paper, the properties of the proposed scheme is analyzed in which a hypothetical infinite line source is used to transmit the plane waves and verified through computer simulation results. Also, we show that the proposed scheme is realizable with an array transducer with a finite aperture size. In summary, it is shown through comparison between the field contours of the proposed scheme and the conventional scheme that the proposed scheme can improve greatly the lateral resolution of ultrasound imaging.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.803-810
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• 2007

Although synthetic aperture focusing techniques can improve the spatial resolution of ultrasound imaging, they have not been employed in a commercial product because they require a real-time N-channel beamformer with a tremendously increased hardware complexity for simultaneous beamforming along M multiple lines. In this paper, a hardware-efficient beamformer architecture for synthetic aperture focusing is presented. In contrast to the straightforward design using NM delay calculators, the proposed method utilizes only M delay calculators by sharing the same values among the focusing delays which should be calculated at the same time between the N channels for all imaging points along the M scan lines. In general, synthetic aperture beamforming requires M 2-port memories. In the proposed beamformer, the input data for each channel is first upsampled with a 4-fold interpolator and each polyphase component of the interpolator output is stored into a 2-port memory separately, requiring 4M 2-port memories for each channel. By properly limiting the area formed with the synthetic aperture focusing, the input memory buffer can be implemented with only 4 2-port memories and one short multi-port memory.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.503-513
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• 1999

A general expression for the beam patterns of various synthetic aperture(SA) techniques was derived based on a unified SA model. This model was used to analyze and compare the performance of existing SA methods. Based on the theoretical studies, we propose a new synthetic aperture technique that is best suitable for the linear-scan imaging. The proposed method enables dynamic tow-way focusing in real imaging so that the B-mode image resolution can be greatly improved. Compared to the conventional focusing technique, the focused beam pattern by the proposed shows the mainlobe width reduced by half and comparable sidelobe levels. Computer simulation results demonstrated the validity of the theoretical analysis and the proposed SA method.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.419-430
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• 2002

In this paper. we propose an efficient method for implementing hi-directional pixel-based focusing(BiPBF) based on a sparse array imaging technique. The proposed method can improve spatial resolution and frame rate of ultrasound imaging with reduced hardware complexity by synthesizing transmit apertures with a small number of sparsely distributed subapertures. As the distance between adjacent subapertures increases, however. the image resolution tends to decrease due to the elevation of grating lobes. Such grating lobes can be eliminated in conventional synthetic aperture imaging techniques. On the contrary, grating lobes arisen from employing sparse synthetic transmit apertures can not be eliminated, which has been shown analytically in this paper. We also propose the condition and method for suppressing the grating lobes below -40dB, which is generally required in practical imaging. by placing the transmit focal depth at a near depth and properly selecting the subaperture distance in Proportion to receive aperture size. The results of both the Phantom and in vivo experiments show that the proposed method implements two-wav dynamic focusing using a smaller number of subapertures, resulting in reduced system complexity and increased frame rate.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.163-171
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• 2005

I have developed a processor for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) raw data compression using range-doppler algorithm for educational purpose. The program realized a generic SAR focusing algorithm so that it can deal with any SAR system if the specification is known. It can run efficiently on a low-cost computer by selecting minimum size out of a whole dataset, and can produce intermediate images during the process. Especially, the program is designed for educational purpose in such a way that Doppler centroid and azimuth ambiguity can be determined graphically by the user. By distributing the source code and the algorithm to public, I intend to maximize the educational effect on understanding and utilizing SAR data. This paper introduces the principle of SAR focusing algorithm embedded on the eSAR processor and shows an example of data processing using ERS-1 raw data.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.84-90
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• 2017

An ultrasonic synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) using a root mean square (RMS) velocity model is proposed for pulse-echo immersion testing to improve the computational efficiency. Considering the immersion ultrasonic testing of a steel block as an example, three kinds of imaging were studied (B-Scan, SAFT imaging based on ray tracing technology and RMS velocity). The experimental results show that two kinds of SAFT imaging have almost the same imaging performance, while the efficiency of RMS velocity SAFT imaging is almost 25 times greater than the SAFT based on Snell's law.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.271-277
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• 1998

Nondestructive method can include both testing itself and analysis or evaluation of the testing results. Although vast amount of testing can be accomplished in a fairly short amount of time due to the advancement of electronic technology. it is really difficult matter to identify whether the indication found during testing corresponds to be a real defect. Thus, in ultrasonic testing, advanced digital signal processing techniques have been widely studied in order to identify the shape of the defect during testing, and one of the signal processing techniques, synthetic aperture focusing technique(SAFT) was tried for holes machined in carbon steel plate in this study. Result showed that signal to noise ratio has been improved considerably compared to the result from original RF signals.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.362-368
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to image the harmonic wave generated by contact acoustic nonlinearity in obliquely incident ultrasonic wave for early detection of closed cracks. A closed crack has been simulated by contacting two aluminum block specimens producing solid-solid contact interfaces and then acoustic nonlinearity has been imaged with contact pressure. Sampling phased array(SPA) and synthetic aperture focusing technique(SAFT) are used for imaging techniques. The amplitude of the fundamental frequency decreased with appling pressure. But, the amplitude of second harmonic increased with pressure and was a maximum amplitude at the simulation point of closed crack. Then, the amplitude of second harmonic decreased. As a result, harmonic imaging of contact acoustic nonlinearity is possible and it is expected to be apply for early detection of initial cracks.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.405-410
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• 2014

In this paper, we compare the quality of images reconstructed by a conventional delayed-sum (DS) algorithm and radiation pattern-based DS algorithm. In order to evaluate the quality of images, we apply the target-to-clutter ratio (TCR), which is commonly used in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image assessment. The radiation pattern-based DS algorithm enhances the TCR of the image by focusing the target signals and preventing contamination of the radar scene. We first consider synthetic data obtained through GprMax2D/3D, a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) forward solver. Experimental data of a 2-GHz bandwidth stepped-frequency signal are collected using a vector network analyzer (VNA) in an anechoic chamber setup. The radiation pattern-based DS algorithm shows a 6.7-dB higher TCR compared to the conventional DS algorithm.