Arama Sonuçları

Listeleniyor 1 - 10 / 12
  • 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
    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
    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 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
    Forward-viewing CMUT arrays for medical Imaging
    (IEEE-INST Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2004-07) Demirci, Utkan; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Oralkan, Ömer; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    This paper reports the design and testing of forward-viewing annular arrays fabricated using capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology. Recent research studies have shown that CMUTs have broad frequency bandwidth and high-transduction efficiency. One- and two-dimensional CMUT arrays of various sizes already have been fabricated, and their viability for medical imaging applications has been demonstrated. We fabricated 64-element, forward-viewing annular arrays using the standard CMUT fabrication process and carried out experiments to measure the operating frequency, bandwidth, and transmit/receive efficiency of the array elements. The annular array elements, designed for imaging applications in the 20 MHz range, had a resonance frequency of 13.5 MHz in air. The immersion pulse-echo data collected from a plane reflector showed that the devices operate in the 5-26 MHz range with a fractional bandwidth of 135%. The output pressure at the surface of the transducer was measured to be 24 kPa/V. These values translate into a dynamic range of 131.5 dB for I-V excitation in 1-Hz bandwidth with a commercial low noise receiving circuitry. The designed, forward-viewing annular CMUT array is suitable for mounting on the front surface of a cylindrical catheter probe and can provide Doppler information for measurement of blood flow and guiding information for navigation through blood vessels in intravascular ultrasound imaging.
  • Yayın
    An endoscopie imaging system based on a two-dimensional CMUT array: real-time imaging results
    (IEEE, 2005) Wygant, Ira O.; Zhuang, Xuefeng; Yeh, David T.; Vaithilingam, Srikant; Nikoozadeh, Amin; Oralkan, Ömer; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    Real-time catheter-based ultrasound imaging tools are needed for diagnosis and image-guided procedures. The continued development of these tools is partially limited by the difficulty of fabricating two-dimensional array geometries of piezoelectric transducers. Using capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology, transducer arrays with widely varying geometries, high frequencies, and wide bandwidths can be fabricated. A volumetric ultrasound imaging system based on a two-dimensional, 16×l6-element, CMUT array is presented. Transducer arrays with operating frequencies ranging from 3 MHz to 7.5 MHz were fabricated for this system. The transducer array including DC bias pads measures 4 mm by 4.7 mm. The transducer elements are connected to flip-chip bond pads on the array back side with 400-?m long through-wafer interconnects. The array is flip-chip bonded to a custom-designed integrated circuit (IC) that comprises the front-end electronics. Integrating the front-end electronics with the transducer array reduces the effects of cable capacitance on the transducer's performance and provides a compact means of connecting to the transducer elements. The front-end IC provides a 27-V pulser and 10-MHz bandwidth amplifier for each element of the array. An FPGA-based data acquisition system is used for control and data acquisition. Output pressure of 230 kPa was measured for the integrated device. A receive sensitivity of 125 mV/kPa was measured at the output of the amplifier. Amplifier output noise at 5 Mhz is 112 nV/?Hz. Volumetric images of a wire phantom and vessel phantom are presented. Volumetric data for a wire phantom was acquired in real-time at 30 frames per second.
  • Yayın
    Forward-looking IVUS imaging using a dual-annular ring CMUT array: Experimental results
    (IEEE, 2007) Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Gürün, Gökçe; Qureshi, Muhammad Shakeel; Balantekin, Müjdat; Tekeş, Coşkun; Hasler, Paul E.; Karaman, Mustafa; Carlier, Stephane; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    This paper presents the experimental results on forward-looking Intravascular ultrasound (FL-IVUS) using dual-annular-ring CMUT arrays. The array has a diameter of 1mm including bondpads which consists of separate, concentric 24 transmit and 32 receive ring arrays built on the same silicon substrate. This configuration has the potential for Independent optimization of each array and uses the silicon area more effectively without any drawback. For imaging experiments, we designed and constructed a custom integrated circuit using a standard 0.5 mu m CMOS process for data acquisition. A sample pulse-echo signal received from the oil-air Interface (plane reflector) at 6mm had a center frequency of 11MHz with 95% fractional 6-dB bandwidth. The measured SNR of the echo was 24 dB with no averaging. B-scan image of a wire-phantom was generated to test the resolution.
  • Yayın
    Annular CMUT arrays for side looking intravascular ultrasound imaging
    (IEEE, 2007) Zahorian, Jaime; Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Gürün, Gökçe; Qureshi, Muhammad Shakeel; Balantekin, Müjdat; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent; Carlier, Stephane; Şişman, Alper; Karaman, Mustafa
    Although side looking intravascular ultrasound (SL-IVUS) imaging systems using single element piezoelectric transducers set the resolution standard in the assessment of the extent of coronary artery disease, improvements in transducer performance are needed to perform harmonic imaging and high resolution imaging of vulnerable plaque. With their small channel count; annular arrays exploiting the inherent broad bandwidth of CMUTs and electronic focusing capability of integrated electronics provide a path for desired SL-IVUS imaging catheters. In this paper, we first describe the design, low temperature fabrication of an 8401 mu m diameter, 8 element CMUT annular array. Testing of the individual elements in oil shows a uniform device behavior with 100% fractional bandwidth around 20MHz without including the effects of attenuation and diffraction. We also present linear scan imaging results obtained on wire targets in oil, tissue and tissue mimicking phantoms using both unfocused and dynamically focused transducers. The results for axial and lateral resolution are in agreement predicted by the simulations and show the feasibility of this approach for high resolution SL-IVUS imaging.
  • Yayın
    Coherent array imaging using phased subarrays. Part II: Simulations and experimental results
    (IEEE-INST Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2005-01) Johnson, Jeremy A.; Oralkan, Ömer; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Demirci, Utkan; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    The basic principles and theory of phased subarray (PSA) imaging imaging provides the flexibility of reducing I he number of front-end hardware channels between that of classical synthetic aperture (CSA) imaging-which uses only one element per firing event-and full-phased array (FPA,) imaging-which uses all elements for each firing. The performance of PSA generally ranges between that obtained by CSA and FPA using the same array, and depends on the amount of hardware complexity reduction. For the work described in this paper, we performed FPA, CSA, and PSA imaging of a resolution phantom using both simulated and experimental data from a 3-MHz, 3.2-cm, 128-element capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer (CMUT) array. The simulated system point responses in the spatial and frequency domains are presented as a means of studying the effects of signal bandwidth, reconstruction filter size, and subsampling rate on the PSA system performance. The PSA and FPA sector-scanned images were reconstructed using the wideband experimental data with 80% fractional bandwidth, with seven 32-element subarrays used for PSA imaging. The measurements on the experimental sector images indicate that, at the transmit focal zone, the PSA method provides a 10% improvement in the 6-dB lateral resolution, and the axial point resolution of PSA imaging is identical to that of FPA imaging. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of PSA image was 58.3 dB, 4.9 dB below that of the FPA image, and the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) is reduced by 10%. The simulated and experimental test results presented in this paper validate theoretical expectations and illustrate the flexibility of PSA imaging as a way to exchange SNR and frame rate for simplified front-end hardware.
  • Yayın
    Front-end CMOS electronics for monolithic integration with CMUT arrays: Circuit design and initial experimental results
    (2008) Gürün, Gökçe; Qureshi, Muhammad Shakeel; Balantekin, Müjdat; Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Peng, Shengyu; Basu, Arindam; Karaman, Mustafa; Hasler, Paul E.; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    This paper discusses design of CMOS-ASICs for monolithic integration of CMUT arrays by post-CMOS fabrication. We describe design strategies for monolithic integration and demonstrate the advantages of CMUT-on-CMOS approach. On the same wafer, separate sets of IC cells are designed to interface different types of CMUT arrays for IVUS and ICE applications. Circuit topologies include resistive feedback transimpedance amplifiers on the receiver side, along with multiplexers and buffers. Gains and bandwidths of receiving amplifiers are optimized separately to fit different array specifications such as number of elements, element size and operation bandwidth. To drive CMUTs a high voltage pulser array is designed in the same 3.3V unmodified CMOS technology by combining existing technological layers in an unconventional way. CMUT arrays are then built on top of the custom made 8" wafer containing these circuits fabricated in a 0.35µm standard CMOS process. We present initial characterization of the CMO electronics and pulse-echo measurements obtained post-CMOS fabricated CMUT elements.