1,180 research outputs found
Refraction-corrected ray-based inversion for three-dimensional ultrasound tomography of the breast
Ultrasound Tomography has seen a revival of interest in the past decade,
especially for breast imaging, due to improvements in both ultrasound and
computing hardware. In particular, three-dimensional ultrasound tomography, a
fully tomographic method in which the medium to be imaged is surrounded by
ultrasound transducers, has become feasible. In this paper, a comprehensive
derivation and study of a robust framework for large-scale bent-ray ultrasound
tomography in 3D for a hemispherical detector array is presented. Two
ray-tracing approaches are derived and compared. More significantly, the
problem of linking the rays between emitters and receivers, which is
challenging in 3D due to the high number of degrees of freedom for the
trajectory of rays, is analysed both as a minimisation and as a root-finding
problem. The ray-linking problem is parameterised for a convex detection
surface and three robust, accurate, and efficient ray-linking algorithms are
formulated and demonstrated. To stabilise these methods, novel
adaptive-smoothing approaches are proposed that control the conditioning of the
update matrices to ensure accurate linking. The nonlinear UST problem of
estimating the sound speed was recast as a series of linearised subproblems,
each solved using the above algorithms and within a steepest descent scheme.
The whole imaging algorithm was demonstrated to be robust and accurate on
realistic data simulated using a full-wave acoustic model and an anatomical
breast phantom, and incorporating the errors due to time-of-flight picking that
would be present with measured data. This method can used to provide a
low-artefact, quantitatively accurate, 3D sound speed maps. In addition to
being useful in their own right, such 3D sound speed maps can be used to
initialise full-wave inversion methods, or as an input to photoacoustic
tomography reconstructions
Calibration Using Matrix Completion with Application to Ultrasound Tomography
We study the calibration process in circular ultrasound tomography devices
where the sensor positions deviate from the circumference of a perfect circle.
This problem arises in a variety of applications in signal processing ranging
from breast imaging to sensor network localization. We introduce a novel method
of calibration/localization based on the time-of-flight (ToF) measurements
between sensors when the enclosed medium is homogeneous. In the presence of all
the pairwise ToFs, one can easily estimate the sensor positions using
multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) method. In practice however, due to the
transitional behaviour of the sensors and the beam form of the transducers, the
ToF measurements for close-by sensors are unavailable. Further, random
malfunctioning of the sensors leads to random missing ToF measurements. On top
of the missing entries, in practice an unknown time delay is also added to the
measurements. In this work, we incorporate the fact that a matrix defined from
all the ToF measurements is of rank at most four. In order to estimate the
missing ToFs, we apply a state-of-the-art low-rank matrix completion algorithm,
OPTSPACE . To find the correct positions of the sensors (our ultimate goal) we
then apply MDS. We show analytic bounds on the overall error of the whole
process in the presence of noise and hence deduce its robustness. Finally, we
confirm the functionality of our method in practice by simulations mimicking
the measurements of a circular ultrasound tomography device.Comment: submitted to IEEE Transaction on Signal Processin
Deep convolutional neural networks for estimating porous material parameters with ultrasound tomography
We study the feasibility of data based machine learning applied to ultrasound
tomography to estimate water-saturated porous material parameters. In this
work, the data to train the neural networks is simulated by solving wave
propagation in coupled poroviscoelastic-viscoelastic-acoustic media. As the
forward model, we consider a high-order discontinuous Galerkin method while
deep convolutional neural networks are used to solve the parameter estimation
problem. In the numerical experiment, we estimate the material porosity and
tortuosity while the remaining parameters which are of less interest are
successfully marginalized in the neural networks-based inversion. Computational
examples confirms the feasibility and accuracy of this approach
Breast Ultrasound Tomography
Both mammography and standard ultrasound (US) rely upon subjective criteria within the breast imaging reporting and data system (BI-RADS) to provide more uniform interpretation outcomes, as well as differentiation and risk stratification of associated abnormalities. In addition, the technical performance and professional interpretation of both tests suffer from machine and operator dependence. We have been developing a new technique for breast imaging that is based on ultrasound tomography which quantifies tissue characteristics while also producing 3-D images of breast anatomy. Results are presented from clinical studies that utilize this method. In the first phase of the study, ultrasound tomography (UST) images were compared to multi-modal imaging to determine the appearance of lesions and breast parenchyma. In the second phase, correlative comparisons with MR breast imaging were used to establish basic operational capabilities of the UST system. The third phase of the study focused on lesion characterization. Region of interest (ROI) analysis was used to characterize masses. Our study demonstrated a high degree of correlation of breast tissue structures relative to fat subtracted contrast-enhanced MRI and the ability to scan ~90% of the volume of the breast at a resolution of 0.7 mm in the coronal plane
Forward model for quantitative pulse-echo speed-of-sound imaging
Computed ultrasound tomography in echo mode (CUTE) allows determining the
spatial distribution of speed-of-sound (SoS) inside tissue using handheld
pulse-echo ultrasound (US). This technique is based on measuring the changing
phase of beamformed echoes obtained under varying transmit (Tx) and/or receive
(Rx) steering angles. The SoS is reconstructed by inverting a forward model
describing how the spatial distribution of SoS is related to the spatial
distribution of the echo phase shift. CUTE holds promise as a novel diagnostic
modality that complements conventional US in a single, real-time handheld
system. Here we demonstrate that, in order to obtain robust quantitative
results, the forward model must contain two features that were not taken into
account so far: a) the phase shift must be detected between pairs of Tx and Rx
angles that are centred around a set of common mid-angles, and b) it must
account for an additional phase shift induced by the error of the reconstructed
position of echoes. In a phantom study mimicking liver imaging, this new model
leads to a substantially improved quantitative SoS reconstruction compared to
the model that has been used so far. The importance of the new model as a
prerequisite for an accurate diagnosis is corroborated in preliminary volunteer
results
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