title: Analysis of speckle in ultrasound images using fractional order statistics and the homodyned k-distribution.
abstract: It is necessary to identify speckled regions in ultrasound images to control adaptive speckle suppression algorithms, for tissue characterisation, and to estimate the elevational separation of B-scans by speckle decorrelation. Previous authors have proposed classification techniques based on second order powers of the homodyned k-distribution, or lower order powers of the more limited k-distribution. In this paper we explore the speckle discrimination properties of statistics based on arbitrary powers of the ultrasound echo envelope signal using a combination of simulations and theoretical results from the homodyned k-distribution. We conclude that statistics based on powers less than one are surprisingly less effective than some higher powers. A simple discriminant function for speckle is evaluated quantitatively in simulation and qualitatively on sample B-scan images.
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, UK. rwp@eng.cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Richard W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Prager
authors.forename: Andrew H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Gee
authors.forename: Graham M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Treece
authors.forename: Laurence H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Berman
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D014463:Ultrasonography