• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2000.09a
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• pp.679-682
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• 2000

In this paper, a MMSE filter in homomorphic wavelet transform domain is proposed for restoring an ultrasonic images corrupted by speckle noise. In order to remove effectively the speckle noise which is a kind of multiplicative noise, speckle noise is transformed into a form of additive noise and then the additive noise is denoised through the MMSE filter in homomorphic wavelet transform domain. The proposed method shows much higher quality in terms of ISNR and subject quality.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.229-235
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• 1992

The usefulness of a portable linear electronic scanner. B-mode ultrasonic machine, was evaluated for estimating the longissimus muscle area from ultrasonic measurement of the muscle depth in 22 live pigs. The electronic scanner was easy to operate for muscle measurements in live pigs, which did not have to be held but were caged. The cross-sectional images of longissimus muscle and covering muscles and fat appeared on the monitor with grey scale in real time. It was easy to identify the ultrasonograms of fat and muscular tissues because the images differed in the degree of the grey scale. The longissimus muscle had less echogenic image than the other muscles. The boundary lines between first, second or third layers of backfat and the longissimus muscle were distinct on the ultrasonogram. The ultrasonic measurement at the shoulder was not acceptable because of the unstable measurements and the complex tissue structure. The repeatabilities for the measurements of longissimus muscle depth at one-half body length and last rib were acceptable. The simple correlation coefficients between ultrasonic estimates of the muscle depth in live pigs and the actual areas in the carcass, were 0.50 and 0.55 at the last rib and the one-half body length, respectively. Therefore, those positions were similarly suitable to measure. The method of electronic scanner for determining longissimus muscle area from the muscle depth was suitable for practical use in the field because of the simple and inexpensive technique.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.99-105
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• 2006

A digital ultrasonic image construction system was developed for the nondestructive detection of cracks in water distribution pipes. The system consists of PC based ultrasonic testing system and a scanning device. The PC based ultrasonic system has an ultrasonic pulse/receive board for the generation and reception of ultrasonic signals, an analogue to digital conversion board for the digitization of the received ultrasonic signals, and transducers for the ultrasonic sensors. Using this system, the digitized ultrasonic signals were properly constructed in accordance with the position information obtained by scanning device that moves an ultrasonic transducer along the outer surface of pipes. In the construction of the ultrasonic signals, signal processing concepts, such as spatial average and array concept, were considered to enhance the resolution of ultrasonic images of pipe wall. Using the developed system, crack detection experiments were performed in both laboratory and field, which shows promise for crack detection in the water distribution system.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.38-45
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• 2007

We propose a preprocessing method for removing floating particles from underwater images based on an analysis of the image features. We compared baseline JPEG and wavelet codec methods to determine the method best suited for underwater images. The proposed preprocessing method enhanced the compression ratio and resolution, and provided an efficient means of compressing the images. The wavelet codec method yielded better compression ratios and image resolutions. The results suggest that the wavelet codec method linked with the proposed preprocess method provides an efficient codec processor and transmission system for underwater images that are used for searches and transmitted via ultrasonic communications.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.604-613
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• 2009

Recently, researches to develop phased array ultrasonic examination techniques are proceeded to diagnose dental caries and the status of surgical operation of dental implant. Sound field analysis of phased array ultrasonic transducers were carried out in order to characterizing the ultrasonic phased array beams. The sound field of ultrasonic radiation was calculated for the sample called "gypsum-improved stone" with the similar characteristics of dental materials. Industrial phased array ultrasonic devices were utilized for the insptriion of the artificial flaws machined in the gypsum-improved stone. Dental implants were made at the pig jaw bone and defect images were confirmed for the dental implants.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.33-40
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• 1982

Although ultrasonic CT is one of the useful techniques for tissue characterization, the reconstructed images, such as the velocity distribution and attenuation constant distribution, are degraded by reflection and refraction of ultrasonic beam. This paper studied the degradation effects on attenuation images using agar gel phantoms which were developed to evaluate ultrasonic CT. We found that the reconstructed attenuation constants at the center of the phantoms were less than the actual values by 0.6 dB/cm when phantom velocity differs by 25 m/s from surrounding saline. We also studied a correction method for refraction and phase cancellation effects, where the correction was made using the maximum value in the received subdata, as obtained by sub-arraying microprobes located at each sampling point. Using this method, we could obtain an improvement in the reconstructed image by the correction on the attenuation effect.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.493-500
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• 2009

An ultrasonic signal processing algorithm was developed for extracting the information of cracks generated around the keyway of a turbine rotor disk. B-scan images were obtained by using keyway specimens and an ultrasonic scan system with x-y position controller. The B-scan images were used as input images for 2-Dimensional signal processing, and the algorithm was constructed with four processing stages of pre-processing, crack candidate region detection, crack region classification and crack information extraction. It is confirmed by experiments that the developed algorithm is effective for the quantitative evaluation of cracks generated around the keyway of turbine rotor disk.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.235-241
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• 2009

Composite wood materials are very sensitive to water and inspection without any coupling medium of a liquid is really needed to wood materials due to the permeation of coupling medium such as water. However, air-coupled ultrasound has obvious advantages over water-coupled experimentation compared with conventional C-scanner. In this work, it is desirable to perform contact-less nondestructive evaluation to assess wood material homogeneity. A wood material was nondestructively characterized with non-contact and contact modes to measure ultrasonic velocity using automated data acquisition software. We have utilized a proposed peak-delay measurement method. Also through transmission mode was performed because of the main limitation for air-coupled transducers, which is the acoustic impedance mismatch between most materials and air. The variation of ultrasonic velocity was found to be somewhat difference due to air-coupled limitations over conventional scan images. However, conventional C-scan images are well agreed with increasing the resin-infiltrated time as expected. Finally, we have developed a measurement system of an ultrasonic velocity based on data acquisition software for obtaining ultrasonic quantitative data for correlation with C-scan images.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.19A no.3
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• pp.121-128
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• 2012

This paper explores the optimal processing element (PE) configuration for ultrasonic image processing at different resolutions ($256{\times}256$, $768{\times}1,024$, and $1,024{\times}1,280$). To determine the optimal PE configuration, this paper evaluates the impacts of a data-per-processing element (DPE) ratio that is defined as the amount of image data directly mapped to each PE on system performance and both energy and area efficiencies using architectural and workload simulations. This paper illustrates the correlation between DPE ratio and PE architecture for a target implementation in 130nm technology. To identify the most efficient PE structure, seven different PE configurations were simulated for ultrasonic image processing. Experimental results indicate that the highest energy efficiencies were achieved at PEs=1,024, 4,096, and 16,384 for ultrasonic images at $256{\times}256$, $768{\times}1,024$, $1,024{\times}1,280$ resolutions, respectively. Furthermore, the maximum area efficiencies were yielded at PEs=256 ($256{\times}256$ image) and 4,096 ($768{\times}1,024$ and $1,024{\times}1,280$ images), respectively.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.476-482
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• 2010

The ultrasonic transient fields and B-mode images of a point target which were simulated for a medical ultrasonic probe with a few defective piezo-elements were compared with those for a normal probe. The present study considered a 3.5 MHz linear array probe whose acoustic beam was formed by the 64 active elements of total 192 elements. The results showed that the maximum amplitude and -3 dB width of the acoustic fields by main-lobes decreased linearly as the defective element number increased from one to four. However, the depths of foci remained almost unchanged, and the pressure differences between main-lobes and side-lobes tended to decrease due to rise in pressures in side-lobes. Such changes in ultrasonic fields affected the B-mode images of point targets. So the artifacts were formed in the right and left side of the target, and the lateral spatial resolutions were decreased while the axial resolution was almost the same.