Arama Sonuçları

Listeleniyor 1 - 10 / 47
  • Yayın
    Phased subarray imaging for low-cost, wideband coherent array imaging
    (IEEE, 2003) Johnson, Jeremy A.; Oralkan, Ömer; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Demirci, Utkan; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    The front-end hardware complexity of conventional full phased array (FPA) imaging is proportional to the number of array elements. Phased subarray (PSA) imaging has been proposed as a method of reducing the hardware complexity-and therefore system cost and size-while achieving near-FPA image quality. A new method is presented for designing the subarray-dependent interpolation filters suitable for wideband PSA imaging. The method was tested experimentally using pulse-echo data of a wire target phantom acquired using a 3.2-cm. 128-element capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array with 85% fractional bandwidth at 3 MHz. A specific PSA configuration using seven 32-element subarrays was compared to FPA imaging, representing a 4-fold reduction in front-end hardware complexity and a 43% decrease in frame rate. For targets near the fixed transmit focal distance, the mean 6-dB lateral resolution was identical to that of FPA, the axial resolution improved by 4%, and the SNR decreased by 5 dB. Measurements were repeated for 10 different PSA configurations with subarray sizes ranging from 4 to 60. The lateral and axial resolutions did not vary significantly with subarray size; both the SNR and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) improved with increased subarray size.
  • Yayın
    Integrated ultrasonic imaging systems based on CMUT arrays: Recent progress
    (IEEE, 2004) Wygant, Ira O.; Zhuang, Xuefeng; Yeh, David T.; Nikoozadeh, Amin; Oralkan, Ömer; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    This paper describes the development of an ultrasonic imaging system based on a two-dimensional capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array. The transducer array and front-end electronics are designed to fit in a 5-mm endoscopic channel. A custom-designed integrated circuit, which comprises the front-end electronics, will be connected with the transducer elements via through-wafer interconnects and flip-chip bonding. FPGA-based signal-processing hardware will provide real-time three-dimensional imaging. The imaging system is being developed to demonstrate a means of integrating the front-end electronics with the transducer array and to provide a clinically useful technology. Integration of the electronics can improve signal-to-noise ratio, reduce the number of cables connecting the imaging probe to a separate processing unit, and provide a means of connecting electronics to large two-dimensional transducer arrays. This paper describes the imaging system architecture and the progress we have made on implementing each of its components: a 16×16 CMUT array, custom-designed integrated circuits, a flip-chip bonding technique, and signal-processing hardware.
  • Yayın
    Co-array optimization of CMUT arrays for forward-looking IVUS
    (IEEE, 2009-09) Tekeş, Coşkun; Karaman, Mustafa; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    The ring annular array structure is a preferred configuration for implementing Forward-Looking IVUS (FLIVUS) catheters as it allows for volumetric imaging as well as use of a guidewire at the center. CMUT technology is promising for these arrays especially with the flexibility of locating array elements on the circular donut area efficiently. To take advantage of this flexibility, in this study, we introduce a new co-array sampling strategy that improves imaging performance while keeping the number of firings at a level suitable for real-time imaging. The presented co-array sampling strategy is based on the idea of adjusting the element density of the co-array rings in radial direction to suppress side lobes. In non-uniform sampling of the co-array with a given number of firings, the inter-element distances are adjusted both in radial and angular direction from inner ring to outer ring to fit a given apodization function. To test the imaging performance, we performed numerical simulations of the co-array with non-uniform sampling fitting to the raised-cosine apodization. The simulation results shows that sidelobe level can be reduced more than 10 dB by using non-uniform co-array sampling. This approach does use uniform weighting of all Tx and Rx elements in beamforming, and hence does not cause any SNR loss for apodization.
  • Yayın
    Volumetric ultrasound imaging using 2-D CMUT arrays
    (IEEE-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2003-11) Oralkan, Ömer; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Cheng, Ching-Hsiang; Johnson, Jeremy A.; Karaman, Mustafa; H. Lee, Thomas; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    Recently, capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) have emerged as a candidate to overcome the difficulties in the realization of 2-D arrays for real-time 3-D imaging. In this paper, we present the first volumetric images obtained using a 2-D CMUT array. We have fabricated a 128 x 128-element 2-D CMUT array with through-wafer via interconnects and a 420-mum element pitch. As an experimental prototype, a 32 x 64-element portion of the 128 X 128-element array was diced and flip-chip bonded onto a glass fanout chip. This chip provides individual leads from a central 16 X 16-element portion of the array to surrounding bondpads. An 8 x 16-element poition of the array was used in the experiments along with a 128-channel data acquisition system. For imaging phantoms, we used a 2.37-mm diameter steel sphere located 10 mm from the array center and two 12-mm-thick Plexiglas plates located 20 mm and 60 mm from the array. A 4 X 4 group of elements in the middle of the 8 X 16-element array was used in transmit, and the remaining elements were used to receive the echo signals. The echo signal obtained from the spherical target presented a frequency spectrum centered at 4.37 MHz with a 100% fractional bandwidth, whereas the frequency spectrum for the echo signal from the parallel plate phantom was centered at 3.44 MHz with a 91% fractional bandwidth. The images were reconstructed by using RF beamforming and synthetic phased array approaches and visualized by surface rendering and multiplanar slicing techniques. The image of the spherical target has been used to approximate the point spread function of the system and is compared with theoretical expectations. This study experimentally demonstrates that 2-D CMUT arrays can be fabricated with high yield using silicon IC-fabrication processes, individual electrical connections can be provided using through-wafer vias, and flip-chip bonding can be used to integrate these dense 2-D arrays with electronic circuits for practical 3-D imaging applications.
  • Yayın
    CMUT-based volumetric ultrasonic imaging array design for forward looking ICE and IVUS applications
    (SPIE-Int Soc Optical Engineering, 2013) Tekeş, Coşkun; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Xu, Toby; Rashid, Muhammad Wasequr; Satır, Sarp; Gürün, Gökçe; Karaman, Mustafa; Hasler, Jennifer Olson; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    Designing a mechanically flexible catheter based volumetric ultrasonic imaging device for intravascular and intracardiac imaging is challenging due to small transducer area and limited number of cables. With a few parallel channels, synthetic phased array processing is necessary to acquire data from a large number of transducer elements. This increases the data collection time and hence reduces frame rate and causes artifacts due to tissue-transducer motion. Some of these drawbacks can be resolved by different array designs offered by CMUT-on-CMOS approach. We recently implemented a 2.1-mm diameter single chip 10 MHz dual ring CMUT-on-CMOS array for forward looking ICE with 64-transmit and 56-receive elements along with associated electronics. These volumetric arrays have the small element size required by high operating frequencies and achieve sub mm resolution, but the system would be susceptible to motion artifacts. To enable real time imaging with high SNR, we designed novel arrays consisting of multiple defocused annular rings for transmit aperture and a single ring receive array. The annular transmit rings are utilized to act as a high power element by focusing to a virtual ring shaped line behind the aperture. In this case, image reconstruction is performed by only receive beamforming, reducing total required firing steps from 896 to 14 with a trade-off in image resolution. The SNR of system is improved more than 5 dB for the same frequency and frame rate as compared to the dual ring array, which can be utilized to achieve the same resolution by increasing the operating frequency.
  • Yayın
    Evaluation of CMUT annular arrays for side-looking IVUS
    (IEEE, 2009) Şişman, Alper; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Gürün, Gökçe; Karaman, Mustafa; Balantekin, Müjdat; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent; Hasler, Paul E.
    Side-looking (SL) IVUS probes are extensively used for management of cardiovascular diseases. Currently SL-IVUS imaging probes use either a single rotating transducer element or solid-state arrays. Probes with single rotating piezoelectric transducer have simple front-end, but have fixed focused operation, and suffers from motion artifacts. Solid-state SL-IVUS imaging probes use piezoelectric transducer arrays and electronic beam-forming. Synthetic phased array processing of signals detected with small-sized elements in these arrays limits the SNR achievable with these probes. In this study, we explore a new SL-IVUS probe architecture employing rotating phased annular CMUT arrays. We tested and compared imaging performance of the existing and proposed probe configurations through simulated point spread functions. We also two fabricated sample annular array designs operating at 20-MHz and 50-MHz. Our experimental measurements on the 20-MHz array in oil shows 105% fractional bandwidth. The 50-MHz array with parylene coating shows approximately 40% fractional bandwidth measured in water. We also present imaging results acquired from wire-targets to test the experimental point-spread functions.
  • Yayın
    An integrated circuit with transmit beamforming flip-chip bonded to a 2-D CMUT array for 3-D ultrasound imaging
    (IEEE-INST Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2009-10) Wygant, Ira O.; Jamal, Nafis S.; Lee, Hyunjoo J.; Nikoozadeh, Amin; Oralkan, Ömer; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    State-of-the-art 3-D medical ultrasound imaging requires transmitting and receiving ultrasound using a 2-D array of ultrasound transducers with hundreds or thousands of elements. A tight combination of the transducer array with integrated circuitry eliminates bulky cables connecting the elements of the transducer array to a separate system of electronics. Furthermore, preamplifiers located close to the array can lead to improved receive sensitivity. A combined IC and transducer array can lead to a portable, high-performance, and inexpensive 3-D ultrasound imaging system. This paper presents an IC flip-chip bonded to a 16 x 16-element capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array for 3-D ultrasound imaging. The IC includes a transmit beamformer that generates 25-V unipolar pulses with programmable focusing delays to 224 of the 256 transducer elements. One-shot circuits allow adjustment of the pulse widths for different ultrasound transducer center frequencies. For receiving reflected ultrasound signals, the IC uses the 32-elements along the array diagonals. The IC provides each receiving element with a low-noise 25-MHz-bandwidth transimpedance amplifier. Using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) clocked at 100 MHz to operate the IC, the IC generated property timed transmit pulses with 5-ns accuracy. With the IC flip-chip bonded to a CMUT array, we show that the IC can produce steered and focused ultrasound beams. We present 2-D and 3-D images of a wire phantom and 2-D orthogonal cross-sectional images (B-scans) of a latex heart phantom.
  • Yayın
    An Analog beamformer for integrated high-frequency medical ultrasound imaging
    (IEEE, 2011) Gürün, Gökçe; Zahorian, Jaime; Tekeş, Coşkun; Karaman, Mustafa; Hasler, Paul E.; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    We designed and fabricated a dynamic receive beamforming integrated circuit (IC) in 0.35-mu m CMOS technology. This beamformer is suitable for integration with an ultrasound annular array for high-frequency (30-50 MHz) intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging. The beamformer IC is capable of buffering, delaying and preamplification for 8 receive channels. We explored an analog delay cell based on a currentmode first-order all-pass filter, which is used as the basic building block to form an analog dynamic delay line. We also explored a bandwidth enhancement method on the delay cell that improved the overall bandwidth of the delay line by a factor of 6. Each delay cell consumes 2.1 mW of power and is capable of generating a tunable delay between 1.75 ns to 2.5 ns, enabling dynamic receive beamforming over a focal range from 1.4 mm to 2 mm. We successfully integrated the fabricated beamformer IC with an 8-element annular array. Our experimental test results demonstrated the desired buffering, preamplification and delaying capabilities of the beamformer.
  • Yayın
    Damariçi yanal kesit görüntüleme için farklı prob yapılarının incelenmesi
    (IEEE, 2009-06-26) Şişman, Alper; Karaman, Mustafa
    Bu çalışmada dönen bir şaftın yanal yüzeyine yerleştirilmiş 8 adet içiçe halka elemanlardan oluşan yana bakan görüntüleme için yeni bir kateter yapısı incelenmiştir. Bu Katater mimarisi basit bir dizi önü alıcı verici elektroniği ile değişken odaklama olanağı sağlamaktadır. Önerilen mimari, mevcut iki farklı kateter mimarisiyle benzetim sonuçları ile karşılaştırmalı olarak incelenmiştir. Benzetimlerde görüntüleme kateter çapı 1mm alınmış, farklı derinlikler ve açılar için 3 noktasal yansıtıcı ile NDF çıkarılmıştır.
  • Yayın
    Optimizing circular ring arrays for forward-looking IVUS imaging
    (IEEE-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2011-12) Tekeş, Coşkun; Karaman, Mustafa; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    Forward-looking (FL) catheter-based imaging systems are highly desirable for guiding interventions in intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) applications. One of the main challenges of array-based FL-IVUS systems is the large channel count, which results in increased system complexity. Synthetic phased-array processing with a reduced firing count simplifies the front-end and, hence, can enable 3-D real-time imaging. Recently, we have investigated dual-ring arrays suitable for IVUS imaging, in which the two concentric circular arrays are used separately as transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) arrays. In this study, we present different optimized array designs based on dual and single circular rings which are suitable for synthetic phased-array processing with a reduced number of firings. To obtain an optimal firing set that produces low side lobes in the wideband response, we use a simulated annealing algorithm. In the simulations, we use 1.2-mm-diameter array configurations with 64 Tx and 58 Rx elements, a center frequency of 20 MHz and fractional bandwidths of 50% and 80%. The results show that optimized dual-ring arrays provide 8 dB improvements in peak near side-lobe level with no widening in the main lobe width when compared with full and other sparse co-arrays.