TY - JOUR
T1 - On the Investigation of Autocorrelation-Based Vector Doppler Method With Plane Wave Imaging
AU - Hasegawa, Hideyuki
AU - Omura, Masaaki
AU - Nagaoka, Ryo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 1986-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2022/4/1
Y1 - 2022/4/1
N2 - Although color flow imaging is one of the representative applications of the Doppler method, it can estimate only the velocity component in the direction of ultrasonic propagation, that is, the axial velocity component. The vector Doppler method with high-frame-rate plane wave imaging overcomes such a limitation by estimating the blood flow velocity vectors using the axial velocities obtained by emitting plane waves in multiple directions. The autocorrelation technique can be used for the estimation of the axial velocity using the phase shift of an ultrasonic echo signal between two transmit-receive events. The technique also requires the frequency of the received echo signal. Although the center frequency of the emitted ultrasonic signal is commonly used in the estimation of axial velocities, the center frequency should be estimated from the received signals. In this study, a method for the estimation of the center frequency designed particularly for the high-frame-rate plane wave imaging was developed. The proposed method estimates the wavenumbers of the received signal in lateral and vertical directions to estimate the wavenumber in the axial direction, from which the center frequency was estimated. The beam steering angle was also estimated from the wavenumbers in the two directions. The effect of the proposed method was validated in simulations. The absolute bias error (ABE) and root-mean squared error in estimated velocity vectors obtained by plane wave imaging with three beam steering angles (-15°, 0°, and 15°) were reduced from 9.27% and 14.80% to 1.15% and 8.75%, respectively, by the proposed method. The applicability of the proposed method to in vivo measurements was also demonstrated using the in vivo recordings of human common carotid arteries. Physiologically consistent blood flow velocity distributions were obtained with respect to three subjects using the proposed method.
AB - Although color flow imaging is one of the representative applications of the Doppler method, it can estimate only the velocity component in the direction of ultrasonic propagation, that is, the axial velocity component. The vector Doppler method with high-frame-rate plane wave imaging overcomes such a limitation by estimating the blood flow velocity vectors using the axial velocities obtained by emitting plane waves in multiple directions. The autocorrelation technique can be used for the estimation of the axial velocity using the phase shift of an ultrasonic echo signal between two transmit-receive events. The technique also requires the frequency of the received echo signal. Although the center frequency of the emitted ultrasonic signal is commonly used in the estimation of axial velocities, the center frequency should be estimated from the received signals. In this study, a method for the estimation of the center frequency designed particularly for the high-frame-rate plane wave imaging was developed. The proposed method estimates the wavenumbers of the received signal in lateral and vertical directions to estimate the wavenumber in the axial direction, from which the center frequency was estimated. The beam steering angle was also estimated from the wavenumbers in the two directions. The effect of the proposed method was validated in simulations. The absolute bias error (ABE) and root-mean squared error in estimated velocity vectors obtained by plane wave imaging with three beam steering angles (-15°, 0°, and 15°) were reduced from 9.27% and 14.80% to 1.15% and 8.75%, respectively, by the proposed method. The applicability of the proposed method to in vivo measurements was also demonstrated using the in vivo recordings of human common carotid arteries. Physiologically consistent blood flow velocity distributions were obtained with respect to three subjects using the proposed method.
KW - Autocorrelation method
KW - blood flow
KW - center frequency
KW - plane wave imaging
KW - vector Doppler
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124823182&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TUFFC.2022.3152186
DO - 10.1109/TUFFC.2022.3152186
M3 - 学術論文
C2 - 35171769
AN - SCOPUS:85124823182
SN - 0885-3010
VL - 69
SP - 1301
EP - 1311
JO - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
JF - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control
IS - 4
ER -