Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

Phased-Array Ultrasonic Technique is traditionally used for the non-destructive inspection of welds and supported by industrial-grade inspection equipment. FullMatrix Capture (FMC) with Total Focusing Method (TFM) provide new capabilities and multimodal imaging, but available commercial scanners have limitations in acquisition speed (30–300MB/s) and reconstruction speed. Our goal was to develop a solution for FMC acquisition that can be applied to high-speed robotized weld scanning (speed of 100 mm/s with a resolution of 1 mm). For FMC acquisition, we have applied a portable programmable ultrasound research system us4R-lite™ (us4us Ltd., Poland) in a 64:256 channel configuration and standard angled 32-element Phased-Array probes. The system can acquire and store raw RF or demodulated I/Q data at a speed of 2–6 GB/s, enabling real-time FMC at high speed. Data can be stored on a PC during scanning and processed by a high-performance GPU. We have successfully tested our experimental setup while scanning flat-section welds with a motorized scanner at a speed approaching 100 mm/s. The acquisition and processing software developed uses Nvidia CUDA on GPU and can manage real-time storage and scanning. Next, we are planning to integrate the solution into an industrialgrade high-speed FMC acquisition system with embedded GPU processing.

Ultrasonic Testing (UT) (4285), robotic inspection (23), PAUT (42), FMC (16), TFM (28), GPU processing

Complex flow patterns are prevalent in the vasculature, but they are difficult to image non-invasively in real-time. This paper presents the first real-time scanning platform for a high frame rate ultrasound technique called color encoded speckle imaging (CESI) and its use in visualizing arterial flow dynamics in-vivo. CESI works by simultaneously rendering flow speckles and color-coded flow velocity estimates on a time-resolved basis. Its live implementation was achieved by integrating a 192-channel programmable ultrasound front-end module, a 4.8 GB/s capacity data streaming link, and a series of computing kernels implemented on the graphical processing unit (GPU) for beamforming and Doppler processing. A slow-motion replay mode was also included to offer coherent visualization of CESI frames acquired at high frame rate (3,000 fps in our experiments). The live CESI scanning platform was found to be effective in facilitating real-time image guidance (at least 20 fps for live video display with 55 fps GPU processing throughout). In vivo pilot trials also showed that live CESI, when running in replay mode, can temporally resolve triphasic flow at the brachial bifurcation and can reveal flow dynamics in the brachial vein during a fist-clenching maneuver. Overall, live CESI has potential for use in routine investigations in-vivo that seek to identify complex flow dynamics in real-time and relate these dynamics to vascular physiology.

color-encoded speckle imaging (CESI), complex flow visualization, graphical processing units (GPUs), high-frame-rate ultrasound (HiFRUS), in vivo studies, live scanning platform

Commercially available cardiac scanners use 64–128 elements phased-array (PA) probes and classical delay-and-sum beamforming to reconstruct a sector B-mode image. For portable and hand-held scanners, which are the fastest growing market, channel count reduction can greatly decrease the total power and cost of devices. The introduction of ultra-fast imaging methods based on plane waves and diverging waves provides new insight into heart's moving structures and enables the implementation of new myocardial assessment and advanced flow estimation methods, thanks to much higher frame rates. The goal of this study was to show the feasibility of reducing the channel count in the diverging wave synthetic aperture image reconstruction method for phased-arrays. The application of ultra-fast 32-channel subaperture imaging combined with spatial compounding allowed the frame rate of approximately 400 fps for 120 mm visualization to be achieved with image quality obtained on par with the classical 64-channel beamformer. Specifically, it was shown that the proposed method resulted in image quality metrics (lateral resolution, contrast and contrast-to-noise ratio), for a visualization depth not exceeding 50 mm, that were comparable with the classical PA beamforming. For larger visualization depths (80–100 mm) a slight degradation of the above parameters was observed. In conclusion, diverging wave phased-array imaging with reduced number of channels is a promising technology for low-cost, energy efficient hand-held cardiac scanners.

phased-array, ultrasound imaging, diverging wave, synthetic transmit aperture

Ultradźwiękowe systemy Phased-Array (PA) umożliwiają detekcję i ocenę wad za pomocą wieloelementowych głowic ze skanowaniem elektronicznym. Zaawansowane metody kierowania wiązki oraz wizualizacji znacznie ułatwiają badania obiektów o skomplikowanej geometrii. Należy jednak pamiętać, ze klasyczna metoda PA bazuje na tych samych zasadach fizycznych, co skanowanie standardowymi głowicami jednoelementowymi i posiada te same ograniczenia. W naszym laboratorium pracujemy nad implementacją nowej klasy metod obrazowania UT, które wykorzystują technikę Full-Matrix Capture (FMC) oraz Total Focusing Method (TFM). Metody te dają zupełnie nowe możliwości rekonstrukcji obrazów wad i pozwalają na uzyskanie jednorodnej rozdzielczości poprzecznej w całej głębokości badania. W tym celu zbudowaliśmy demonstrator przenośnego systemu PA wyposażony w funkcje FMC i TFM. Akwizycja pełnej macierzy ech oraz przetwarzanie softwarowe na wbudowanym procesorze GPU (Nvidia Tegra) zapewniają duże możliwości przetwarzania i analizy sygnałów. Demonstrator jest wyposażony w 32-kanały akwizycji w konfiguracji 32:128 i współpracuje ze standardowymi głowicami PA firmy Olympus.

UT, Phased-Array, akwizycja pełnej macierzy, GPU

A new ultrasound digital transcranial Doppler system (digiTDS) is introduced. The digiTDS enables diagnosis of intracranial vessels which are rather difficult to penetrate for standard systems. The device can display a color map of flow velocities (in time-depth domain) and a spectrogram of a Doppler signal obtained at particular depth. The system offers a multigate processing which allows to display a number of spectrograms simultaneously and to reconstruct a flow velocity profile.
The digital signal processing in digiTDS is partitioned between hardware and software parts. The hardware part (based on FPGA) executes a signal demodulation and reduces data stream. The software part (PC) performs the Doppler processing and display tasks. The hardware-software partitioning allowed to build a flexible Doppler platform at a relatively low cost.
The digiTDS design fulfills all necessary medical standards being a new useful tool in the transcranial field as well as in heart velocimetry research.

Doppler system, digital signal processing, hardware-software partitioning, field programmable gate arrays

Ultradźwiękowe systemy Phased-Array pozwalają na różne tryby skanowania i wizualizacji wad oraz zapewniają wyższą jakość inspekcji niż tradycyjne systemy jednokanałowe. Kolejnym krokiem w rozwoju tych systemów będzie metoda akwizycji pełnej macierzy oraz zaawansowane algorytmy rekonstrukcji obrazów. W artykule przedstawiono zasady działania tych technik oraz wymagania jakie stawiają one przed systemami akwizycji i przetwarzania sygnałów. Zaprezentowano także badawczy system Uniwersalnej Platformy Ultradźwiękowej, który został opracowany specjalnie do testowania i praktycznego wdrażania tych metod. Platforma posłużyła do badań i porównania dwóch metod rekonstrukcji przy wykorzystaniu akwizycji pełnej macierzy – metody STA (Synthetic Transmit Aperture) i metody PWI (Plane Wave Imaging).

UT Phased-Array, akwizycja pełnej macierzy, syntetyczna apertura

For the last 20 years the world cardiosurgery has presented a considerable change of attitude to mechanical circulatory support. In spite of technological progress the main problems in ventricular assist devices are: thrombosis and low accuracy of flow measurements. In this paper the prototype of multi-gate Doppler flowmeter intended for cardiac assist system ReligaHeart EXT has been presented as well as the possibility of ultrasonic micro embolus detection.

artificial heart, microemboli, ultrasound Doppler

The use of therapeutic ultrasound continues to grow. A focused ultrasonic wave can increase the tissue temperature locally for the non-invasive cancer treatment or other medical applications. The authors have designed a seven-element annular array transducer operating at 2.4 MHz. Each element was excited by sine burst supplied by a linear amplifier and FPGA control circuits. The acoustic field, generated by a transducer was initially numerically simulated in a computer and next compared to water tank hydrophone measurements performed at 20, 40 and 60 mm focal depth. The results showed good agreement of the measurements with theory and the possibility to focus the ultrasound in the preselected area. The total acoustic power radiated by the annular array was equal to 2.4W.

ultrasonic therapy, annular array transducer, ultrasonic field

In this work, we considered the implementation of a 3D volume reconstruction algorithm for single plane-wave ultrasound insonification. We review the theory behind the Hybrid Spectral-Domain Imaging (HSDI) algorithm, provide details of the algorithm implementation for Nvidia CUDA GPU cards, and discuss the performance evaluation results. The average time required to reconstruct a single data volume using our GPU implementation of the HSDI algorithm was 22 ms. We also present an iso-surface extraction result using a marching cubes algorithm. Our work constitutes a preliminary research for further development and implementation of 3D volume reconstruction using GPU implementation of the spectral domain imaging algorithm.

ultrasound imaging, 3D ultrasound, volumetric imaging, gpu

In the last few decades 3D/4D ultrasonography has been gaining increasing popularity not only as a scientific research topic but also as a new modality of medical imaging in clinical applications. However, design and implementation of 3D/4D device for high quality ultrasound imaging within portable, handheld systems is a technological challenge. Design of transmit/receive (TX/RX) electronics for efficient operation with 2D array transducers, comprised of thousands of elements, enormous amount of input/output data that must be transferred and processed, power consumption limitation are just a few of the difficulties that arise. No less important is development of reliable and numerically efficient algorithms for 3D/4D imaging which should take all these restrictions into account. The main objective of this paper is to present a new hybrid spectral domain imaging (HSDI) method that delivers an original and innovative solution for the technical limitations of modern ultrasonography 3D/4D. The developed image reconstruction method is based on the plane-wave insonification (PWI) with sub-aperture data acquisition combined with frequency domain (FD) data processing. The performance of the method was tested using the Field II simulated acoustic data of 3D cyst phantom. For a 3D low-resolution image (LRI) comprised of 64×64×512 pixels the proposed HSDI method is about 100 times faster, in the case of a single 3D, than its counterpart based on the PWI synthetic aperture time domain (TD) method for a single TX/RX event. On the other hand, the frame rate increase is proportional to the number of sub-apertures used for a single high-resolution image (HRI) synthesis

Portable and hand-held ultrasound imagers have the potential to revolutionize Point-of-Care medical diagnostics. There is great need for low-cost, portable scanners with extended battery life. In this paper, we focus on hardware-software partitioning in heterogeneous systems where both field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and graphics processing unit (GPU) resources are available. We present the architecture of a prototype test scanner for the evaluation of various hardware-software partitioning strategies. The system is equipped with the Intel Arria 10 FPGA and the Nvidia Tegra X2 mobile GPU. FPGA-based beamformers: Delay-and-Sum and Filtered Multiply-and-Sum, were implemented. These 32-channel beamformer blocks are integrated into a complete dataflow along with the data acquisition, RF filter, quadrature demodulator, and envelope detector. The designed dataflow allows one to allocate processing functions to either hardware (FPGA) or software (GPU) to explore various imaging scenarios and optimize power consumption. A dedicated measurement setup facilitates measuring power consumption of both FPGA and GPU. The developed setup will provide a reliable experimental system power characterization.

ultrasound imaging, ultrasound scanner, point-ofcare ultrasound, beamforming, low-power, FPGA, GPU processing

The widely adopted ultrasound Phased-Array (PA) systems for nondestructive testing (NDT) use standard beamforming for line-by-line image creation. The introduction of the new full-matrix capture (FMC) technique enables the implementation of advanced processing algorithms (e.g. the total focusing method, multi-pass adaptive techniques). However, the limited availability of portable PA systems with FMC capabilities prevents widespread introduction. Our goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of a portable PA solution with FMC and advanced processing with the help of a mobile GPU. Using an OEM ultrasound front-end module (us4us Ltd., Poland), we integrated a complete PA system with an embedded Nvidia Tegra X2 module. An external probe adapter enables a direct connection to commercial Olympus-NDT PA probes with up to 128-elements (32-element active RX aperture). The system is fully programmable, both in the front-end (TX/RX schemes, acquisition parameters), as well as in the digital signal processing chain. Raw RF data is acquired and transferred to mobile GPU memory for processing. The algorithm can be conveniently implemented using a standard Nvidia CUDA toolkit. We implemented real-time B-mode imaging with the total focusing method for demonstration purposes. The presented all-in-one system is a fully flexible tool for the research and evaluation of novel Phased-Array FMC methods and complex signal processing algorithms. An extended programmability and real-time access to raw channel data allows to create custom solutions specifically dedicated to any one NDT application. Mobile GPU parallel processing provides a strong enough performance for real-time imaging. Its small size and low-power consumption make the system an ideal candidate for a portable industrial flaw detector with advanced processing.

Materials containing suspended micro- or nanomaterials are used extensively in multiple fields of research and industry. In order to understand the behavior of nanomaterials suspended in a liquid, the knowledge of particle stability and mobility is fundamental. For this reason, it is necessary to know the nanoscale solid-solid interaction and the hydrodynamic properties of the particles. In the presented research we used a hybrid Atomic Force Microscope coupled with Optical Tweezers system to measure the femtonewton scale interaction forces acting between single particles and the walls of a microchannel at different separation distances and environmental conditions. We show an important improvement in a typical detection system that increases the signal to noise ratio for more accurate position detection at very low separation distances.

Optical Tweezers, Atomic Force Microscopy, particle-wall interaction, colloid stability

Ultrasound Phased-Array (PA) systems for nondestructive testing (NDT) use standard beamforming for line-byline image creation. New methods utilizing full-matrix capture (FMC) enable the application of advance processing algorithms, such as the total focusing method and multi-pass adaptive techniques for enhanced flaw visualization. The effective FMC data acquisition and its real-time processing require a very high data throughput and powerful computational resources. Most commercial PA systems support some form of FMC acquisition, but the limited external data bandwidth prevents this mode of operation from being useful. We have developed a fully programmable ultrasound research system capable of performing FMC data acquisition and image reconstruction with a high framerate. The ultrasound platform is supporting up to 192 parallel TX/RX electronics channels integrated with an embedded control PC and a GPU cluster for parallel processing. The implemented software libraries give the end-user control over TX/RX schemes, the acquisition process and signal processing algorithms. This all-in-one system is a fully flexible tool for the research and evaluation of novel Phased-Array FMC imaging methods and complex signal processing algorithms.

GPU, ultrasound, Phased-Array

Ultrasound transmit push sequences put a high stress on a pulser IC due to power dissipation that could result in overheating. The aim of this work was to determine the safe range of parameters of push sequences for a high-voltage, high-speed, 4-channel pulser STHV748 (STMicroelectronics). The impact of using ceramic capacitors and electrolytic capacitors on the HV supply was also examined. The reaction of the pulser was measured with three output loading conditions. A safe range of values of pulser voltage for a given transmit frequency and sequence length were determined by monitoring chip temperature. Additionally, maximum pulse repetition frequency was evaluated in function of the maximum supply voltage. The STHV748 pulser is capable of generating push sequences. The duty-cycle is a key parameter that determines the safe operating conditions of the pulser. Limiting the amplitude of the HV supply enables us to increase push burst duration or decrease the frequency of the transmit signal.

acoustic radiation force, shear wave imaging, push sequences, HV pulser

Our goal is to develop a complete ultrasound platform based on real-time SAFT (Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique) GPU processing. We are planning to integrate all the ultrasound modules and processing resources (GPU) in a single rack enclosure with the PCIe switch fabric backplane. The first developed module (RX64) provides acquisition and streaming of 64 ultrasound channels. We implemented and benchmarked data streaming from the RX64 to the GPU memory and the SAFT image reconstruction on the GPU. A high system performance was achieved using hardware assisted direct memory transfers and pipelined processing workflow. The complete system throughput, including 128 channel data transfer at 16kS per line and low-resolution 256×256 pixel image SAFT reconstruction on a single Nvidia K5000 GPU, reached 450 fps. The obtained results proved the feasibility of the ultrasound real-time imaging system with GPU SAFT processing.

ultrasonic imaging, synthetic aperture, GPGPU, FPGA

The objective of our project is to develop a complete ultrasound platform with real-time GPU processing. The platform is designed to be modular and scalable both in number of ultrasound channels (64-256), as well as in communication bandwidth and processing power. By standardizing on the PCIe switch fabric, we are planning to integrate all the ultrasound modules and processing resources (GPU) in a single rack enclosure. Using PCIe direct peer-to-peer communication for transferring the data from the ultrasound acquisition modules to the GPUs, we maximize the system bandwidth and minimize CPU usage. The first developed module of our platform is RX64 - a 64-channel ultrasound acquisition PCIe card. The RX64 contains a high-end FPGA Altera Stratix IV 70 GX interfaced to: two 32-channels mixed-signal front-end ultrasound modules and two 64-bit 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM memories for data buffering. We also develop GPU kernels for SAFT based ultrasound imaging, as well as GPU Framework for building complete signal processing pipeline.

ultrasonic imaging, synthetic aperture, GPU, FPGA

There is a continuous trend towards small and portable ultrasound systems with multichannel processing. The objective of the work was to develop a modular acquisition and processing platform based on the following architecture principles: limited hardware processing, external high-speed data communication and software based on SAFT processing using embedded graphics processing unit (GPU). The acquisition module connected via PCIe or USB 3.0 interface can stream either raw RF data or demodulated ones. A low-power embedded PC with embedded GPU will implement ultrasound signal processing, as well as control and visualization functions. The performed feasibility study showed that AMD APU G-Series embedded x86 CPU+GPU is capable of real-time SAFT image reconstruction at limited resolution.

ultrasonic imaging, synthetic aperture, medical electronics, GPU, FPGA

W artykule opisano wybór i implementację filtrów ech stałych w programowalnych układach logicznych (FPGA) dla ultradźwiękowego wielobramkowego systemu przezczaszkowego przepływomierza krwi opracowywanego w Zakładzie Ultradźwięków IPPT PAN. Implementacja filtrów w FPGA miała na celu redukcję obciążenia softwarowego przetwarzania sygnałów dopplerowskich. W pracy przedstawiono badania modelowe i porównanie filtrów ech stałych o skończonej odpowiedzi impulsowej (SOI) oraz nieskończonej odpowiedzi impulsowej (NOI). Przeanalizowany został zakres stabilnej pracy filtru NOI. Wyselekcjonowany filtr górnoprzepustowy typu SOI został następnie zaimplementowany i zoptymalizowany do architektury układów FPGA oraz zastosowania w przepływomierzu. Zastosowano ekonomiczny układ FPGA Altera Cyclone III EP3C25F324C8. Opracowany filtr ech stałych realizuje 100 identycznych górnoprzepustowych filtrów typu SOI, co zapewnia filtrowanie sygnału dopplerowskiego w 100 bramkach jednocześnie. Filtry operują na 16 bitowych próbkach sygnału, a ich charakterystyka jest programowalna przez 65 16-bitowych współczynników. Zweryfikowano poprawność przetwarzania na komputerze PC w środowisku Altera Quartus II 9.1 oraz ModelSim 6.5b poprzez symulacje i porównanie odpowiedzi impulsowej oraz skokowej filtrów. W wyniku opisanych prac powstała struktura logiczna filtru ech stałych przeznaczona do implementacji w układzie FPGA Cyclone III, zajmująca 5% zasobów logicznych układu oraz 34% zasobów pamięciowych.

ultradźwiękowy Doppler przezczaszkowy, filtry ech stałych, cyfrowe przetwarzanie, FPGA

Doppler instruments are widely used for evaluation of the hemodynamic of vascular circulation. The objective of the work was to develop a modular acquisition and processing system to enable the construction of various ultrasound instruments. The developed system consists of two electronic boards with dimensions of 130x82mm in sandwich configuration. Digital signal processing was based on an efficient DSP (Blackfin BF537, Analog Devices, USA) with 128MB RAM and an FPGA (Cyclone III EP3C25, Altera, USA). The system can work as a standalone device with the limited user interface or as a PC peripheral under the control of the application software. The dual channel transcranial PW Doppler flowmeter with multigate processing has been the first application of the developed platform. The acquisition module provides the A/D sampling at 64 MSPS rate with 14-bits resolution and supports ultrasonic transducers within the range of 1–16 MHz. The PC software performs signal processing and visualization of color Doppler, spectrum, flow profile and audio. The developed system is a modern technical solution which enables to build portable Doppler instruments of different classes. The developed prototype of transcranial Doppler will be introduced into production soon.

ultrasound Doppler systems, transcranial aplications, digital RF processing, DSP, FPGA

A new 128 channel parallel acquisition module for the Ultrasonix SonixTouch ultrasound scanner was developed. Although the module provides similar functionality to the original SonixDAQ system, it presents new possibilities of real-time data streaming and processing on GPU, thanks to a fast PCIe communication interface. Direct access and processing of pre-beamformed channel data with fully programmable transmit schemes enables the research implementation of new advanced imaging modalities (eg. plane wave imaging, vector Doppler, shear wave elastography). The presented RX-DAQ system is enriched with a GPU software framework, for Python and Matlab, enabling the integration of user processing functions.

ultrasonic imaging, pre-beamformed data, real-time processing, GPU, FPGA

A new ultrasound digital transcranial Doppler system (digiTDS) is introduced. The digiTDS enables diagnosis of intracranial vessels which are difficult to penetrate for standard systems. The device can display a color map of flow velocities in time-depth domain and a spectrogram of a Doppler signal received from a particular depth. The system offers a multigate processing that allows to display simultaneously a number of spectrograms and to reconstruct a flow velocity profile. The digital signal processing in digiTDS is partitioned between hardware and software parts. The hardware part (based on FPGA) executes a signal demodulation and reduces data stream. The software part (PC) performs the Doppler processing and display tasks. The hardware-software partitioning allowed to build a flexible Doppler platform at a relatively low cost. The digiTDS design fulfills all necessary medical standards being a new useful tool in transcranial field as well as in heart velocimetry research.

ultrasound transcranial Doppler, RF signal processing, DSP, FPGA