Robust Ultrasonic Reverberation Clutter Suppression Using Multi-Apodization with Cross-correlation

Dual Apodization with Cross-correlation (DAX) is a novel beamforming technique that utilizes a pair of complementary receive apodizations for clutter suppression in ultrasound imaging. The effectiveness of DAX in-vivo is often reduced because of the strong reverberation clutter signals caused by near-field structures. In this work, we propose a modified version of DAX, known as Multi-Apodization with Cross-correlation (MAX), which suppresses reverberation clutter in a highly robust manner by utilizing multiple pairs of receive apodizations followed by normalized cross-correlation. Our simulation, experimental and initial clinical results show that MAX achieves a large improvement over DAX in terms of image contrast and shows great potential for more accurate diagnosis in clinics.