Ultrasound research interface


An ultrasound research interface is a software tool loaded onto a diagnostic clinical ultrasound device which provides functionality beyond typical clinical modes of operation.
A normal clinical ultrasound user only has access to the ultrasound data in its final processed form, typically a B-Mode image, in DICOM format. For reasons of device usability they also have limited access to the processing parameters that can be modified.
A URI allows a researcher to achieve different results by either acquiring the image at various intervals through the processing chain, or changing the processing parameters.

Typical B-mode receive processing chain

A typical digital ultrasound processing chain for B-Mode imaging may look as follows:
  • Multiple analog signals are acquired from the ultrasound transducer
  • Analog signals may pass through one or more analog notch filters and a variable-gain amplifier
  • Multiple analog-to-digital converters convert the analog radio frequency signal to a digital RF signal sampled at a predetermined rate and at a predetermined number of bits
  • Beamforming is applied to individual RF signals by applying time delays and summations as a function of time and transformed into a single RF signal
  • The RF signal is run through one or more digital FIR or IIR filters to extract the most interesting parts of the signal given the clinical operation
  • The filtered RF signal runs through an envelope detector and is log compressed into a grayscale format
Multiple signals processed in this way are lined up together and interpolated and rasterized into a readable image.

Data access

A URI may provide data access at many different stages of the processing chain, these include:
  • Pre-beamformed digital RF data from individual channels
  • Beamformed RF data
  • Envelope detected data
  • Interpolated image data
Where many diagnostic ultrasound devices have Doppler imaging modes for measuring blood flow, the URI may also provide access to Doppler related signal data, which can include:
  • Demodulated data
  • FFT spectral data
  • Autocorrelated velocity color Doppler data

    Tools

A URI may include many different tools for enabling the researcher to make better use of the device and the data captured, some of these tools include:
  • Custom MATLAB programs for reading and processing signal and image data
  • Software Development Kits for communicating with the URI, signal processing and other specialized modes of operation available on the URI