Implementation of swept synthetic aperture imaging

Ultrasound imaging of deep targets is limited by the resolution of current ultrasound systems based on the available aperture size. We propose a system to synthesize an extended effective aperture in order to improve resolution and target detectability at depth using a precisely-tracked transducer swept across the region of interest. A Field II simulation was performed to demonstrate the swept aperture approach in both the spatial and frequency domains. The adaptively beamformed system was tested experimentally using a volumetric transducer and an ex vivo canine abdominal layer to evaluate the impact of clutter-generating tissue on the resulting point spread function. Resolution was improved by 73% using a 30.8 degree sweep despite the presence of varying aberration across the array with an amplitude on the order of 100 ns. Slight variations were observed in the magnitude and position of side lobes compared to the control case, but overall image quality was not significantly degraded as compared by a simulation based on the experimental point spread function. We conclude that the swept aperture imaging system may be a valuable tool for synthesizing large effective apertures using conventional ultrasound hardware.