Adaptive reverberation noise delay estimation for reverberation suppression in dual band ultrasound imaging

The behavior of the propagation delays introduced in dual frequency band ultrasound imaging is discussed. In particular, the delay of reverberation noise components is examined. Using a delay corrected subtraction (DCS) method, it is possible to suppress the reverberation noise if the behavior of the propagation delays is known. Here, a signal adaptive estimation for the reverberation delay is introduced and applied through DCS to suppress reverberation noise in a numerically simulated signal. The reverberation reduction is compared to DCS suppression using a simpler delay estimation and shows that a signal based adaptive estimation yields a improved suppression of reverberation noise. The study indicates that the advantage of the adaptive estimation is highest when the medium has changing nonlinearity with depth. (C) 2015 Acoustical Society of America.