Compensated Row-Column Ultrasound Imaging System Using Edge-Guided Three Dimensional Random Fields

Abstract

The row-column method is a simplification technique used to reduce
the complexity of a fully addressed 2-D array. Although it
greatly reduces the number of physical connections required as
well as the amount of data to be handled, it still has limitations; its
imaging data output is sparse, it suffers from speckle noise, and its
spatially-dependant point spread function is riddled with edge artifacts.
In this work, we propose a row-column ultrasound imaging
system, termed CRUIS3D, that uses a 3-D edge-guided random
field approach to compensate for the limitations of the row-column
method. Tests on CRUIS3D and previously published row-column
systems show the effectiveness of our proposed system as a tool
for enhancing 3-D row-column ultrasound imaging.