Design of a low cost ultrasound system using diverging beams and synthetic aperture approach: Preliminary study

In this paper, a new method inspired by the synthetic aperture approach is proposed that aims at reducing the system's complexity (only 8 or 16 active elements) without compromising the image quality, and at frame rates comparable to or higher than conventional focused linear array technique. The novel method has been investigated in simulations using Field II software and experiments performed on a wire phantom using an ultrasound scanner. Results show that the proposed method provides better Lateral Resolution (LR) to that obtained when conventional focused linear array technique is used. The estimated LR at the focal point was 1.09 mm and 0.29 mm for conventional and the proposed method, respectively, in simulations. These were estimated to be 1.03 mm and 0.38 mm, respectively, in experiments. The image quality is shown to improve further when sign coherence factor weighting is incorporated during beamforming.