Forward-backward Minimum Variance Beamforming Combined with Coherence Weighting Applied to Ultrasound Imaging

摘要

Currently,the delay-and-sum(DAS) algorithm is used as a standard technique in ultrasound beamforming.However,the adaptive ultrasound beamformer shows its superiority over the traditional beamformer,DAS,in many ways.In this paper,we proposed a novel adaptive beamformer which combined the minimum variance(MV)adaptive beamformer together with coherence weighting factor(CF) and forward-backward averaging(FB) to medical ultrasound imaging.We called it the forward-backward averaging coherence weighting minimum variance(FB-CF-MV) beamformer.Based on Sonix RP system,we built an ultrasound beamforming research platform.We used this open platform to collect pre-beamforming RF data,and then processed them in Matlab.We tested our algorithm on a fetal ultrasound phantom and compared it with DAS and MV algorithm.The results showed that the new beamformer improved image contrast,making the image outline smoother while compared with other two algorithms.