TY - JOUR
T1 - Fast Acoustic Steering Via Tilting Electromechanical Reflectors (FASTER)
T2 - A Novel Method for High Volume Rate 3-D Ultrasound Imaging
AU - Dong, Zhijie
AU - Li, Shuangliang
AU - Lowerison, Matthew R.
AU - Pan, Jason
AU - Zou, Jun
AU - Song, Pengfei
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 1986-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - The 3-D ultrasound imaging is essential for a wide range of clinical applications in diagnostic and interventional cardiology, radiology, and obstetrics for prenatal imaging. 3-D ultrasound imaging is also pivotal for advancing technical developments of emerging imaging technologies, such as elastography, blood flow imaging, functional ultrasound (fUS), and super-resolution microvessel imaging. At present, however, existing 3-D ultrasound imaging methods suffer from low imaging volume rate, suboptimal imaging quality, and high costs associated with 2-D ultrasound transducers. Here, we report a novel 3-D ultrasound imaging technique, fast acoustic steering via tilting electromechanical reflectors (FASTER), which provides both high imaging quality and fast imaging speed while at low cost. Capitalizing upon unique water immersible and fast-Tilting microfabricated mirror to scan ultrafast plane waves in the elevational direction, FASTER is capable of high volume rate, large field-of-view (FOV) 3-D imaging with conventional 1-D transducers. In this article, we introduce the fundamental concepts of FASTER and present a series of calibration and validation studies for FASTER 3-D imaging. In a wire phantom and tissue-mimicking phantom study, we demonstrated that FASTER was capable of providing spatially accurate 3-D images with a 500-Hz imaging volume rate and an imaging FOV with a range of 48° (20 mm at 25-mm depth) in the elevational direction. We also showed that FASTER had comparable imaging quality with conventional mechanical translation-based 3-D imaging. The principles and results presented in this study establish the technical foundation for the new paradigm of high volume rate 3-D ultrasound imaging based on ultrafast plane waves and fast-Tilting, water-immersible microfabricated mirrors.
AB - The 3-D ultrasound imaging is essential for a wide range of clinical applications in diagnostic and interventional cardiology, radiology, and obstetrics for prenatal imaging. 3-D ultrasound imaging is also pivotal for advancing technical developments of emerging imaging technologies, such as elastography, blood flow imaging, functional ultrasound (fUS), and super-resolution microvessel imaging. At present, however, existing 3-D ultrasound imaging methods suffer from low imaging volume rate, suboptimal imaging quality, and high costs associated with 2-D ultrasound transducers. Here, we report a novel 3-D ultrasound imaging technique, fast acoustic steering via tilting electromechanical reflectors (FASTER), which provides both high imaging quality and fast imaging speed while at low cost. Capitalizing upon unique water immersible and fast-Tilting microfabricated mirror to scan ultrafast plane waves in the elevational direction, FASTER is capable of high volume rate, large field-of-view (FOV) 3-D imaging with conventional 1-D transducers. In this article, we introduce the fundamental concepts of FASTER and present a series of calibration and validation studies for FASTER 3-D imaging. In a wire phantom and tissue-mimicking phantom study, we demonstrated that FASTER was capable of providing spatially accurate 3-D images with a 500-Hz imaging volume rate and an imaging FOV with a range of 48° (20 mm at 25-mm depth) in the elevational direction. We also showed that FASTER had comparable imaging quality with conventional mechanical translation-based 3-D imaging. The principles and results presented in this study establish the technical foundation for the new paradigm of high volume rate 3-D ultrasound imaging based on ultrafast plane waves and fast-Tilting, water-immersible microfabricated mirrors.
KW - 3-D ultrasound
KW - high volume rate
KW - plane wave imaging
KW - water-immersible microfabricated mirror
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102003586&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85102003586&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TUFFC.2020.3020871
DO - 10.1109/TUFFC.2020.3020871
M3 - Article
C2 - 32870789
AN - SCOPUS:85102003586
SN - 0885-3010
VL - 68
SP - 675
EP - 687
JO - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
JF - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
IS - 3
M1 - 9184140
ER -