3D Fast Ultrasound Imaging Through Pulse Compression: An Experimental Study

3D fast/ultrasound imaging has emerged in the last years in research but still suffers from its poor image quality. Indeed, using plane/diverge waves does not permit to insonify the medium with sufficient energy at each point to get a good signal-to-noise ratio, contrast-to-noise-ratio or even resolution. On the other hand, coded excitation is currently used to increase signal-to-noise ratio and penetration depth. In this work, the objective is to combine 3D fast/ultrafast imaging with coded excitation to achieve better image quality at a high acquisition rate. Promising experimental results are obtained from both wire and cyst phantoms using a chirp excitation signal. The contrast-to-noise ratio and signal-to-noise ratio were improved by 4 dB and 2 dB respectively by the proposed method in comparison to the conventional way to do 3D imaging using a standard transmit. The improvement of the axial resolution of about 17% is the third important result obtained by the developed method still in comparison with the classical method. Experimental results show that an effective implementation on a research scanner of 3D coded excitation using plane wave imaging is possible.