State of the art in digital broadband medical ultrasound imaging

Abstract

This paper summarizes the state of the art in ultrasound imaging. It emphasizes the importance of capturing and preserving broadband information received from tissues. A description of new generation transducers is provided, with a short discussion on future materials to achieve even wider bandwidth. The flexibility and broadband characteristics of the digital beamforming technique is described in detail. An example of the strength of such a technique is given in demonstrating how compounding (in space and/or frequency) the information received from tissue will contribute in enhancing the imaging performance of the ultrasound system by reducing and/or removing artifacts like clutter and speckle.