Sparse Optimal Design of Ultrasonic Phased Array for Efficient DMAS Imaging

Enhancing imaging performance is one of long-term goals pursued by ultrasonic phased array in the field of nondestructive testing. However, the computational complexity will grow when the imaging methods are improved. In this work, delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS) is combined with sparse array technique to achieve better imaging performance and maintain the almost same computational cost as sparse total focus method (TFM) needs. Comparison analysis is conducted on the beam pattern and imaging metrics, and the result indicates that sparse DMAS works better over sparse TFM at the same level of imaging time.