Implementation of Synthetic Aperture Imaging in Medical Ultrasound: The Dual Stage Beamformer Approach

The main advantage of medical ultrasound imaging is its real time capability, which makes it possible to visualize dynamic structures in the human body. Real time synthetic aperture imaging puts very high demands on the hardware, which currently cannot be met. A method for reducing the number of calculations and still retain the many advantages of SA imaging is described.

It consists of a dual stage beamformer, where the first can be a simple fixed focus analog beamformer and the second an ordinary digital ultrasound beamformer. The performance and constrictions of the approach is described.