title: An ultrasonic imaging system based on a new SAFT approach and a GPU beamformer.
abstract: The design of newer ultrasonic imaging systems attempts to obtain low-cost, small-sized devices with reduced power consumption that are capable of reaching high frame rates with high image quality. In this regard, synthetic aperture techniques have been very useful. They reduce hardware requirements and accelerate information capture. However, the beamforming process is still very slow, limiting the overall speed of the system. Recently, general-purpose computing on graphics processing unit techniques have been proposed as a way to accelerate image composition. They provide excellent computing power with which a very large volume of data can easily and quickly be processed. This paper describes a new system architecture that merges both principles. Thus, using a minimum-redundancy synthetic aperture technique to acquire the signals (2R-SAFT), and a graphics processing unit as a beamformer, we have developed a new scanner with full dynamic focusing, both on emission and reception, that attains real-time imaging with very few resources.
authors: Centro de Acústica Aplicada y Ensayos No Destructivos-CAEND, Centro Mixto Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Universidad Politécnica de Madrid-CSIC-UPM, Madrid, Spain. cjmartin@caend.upm-csic.es
authors: Carlos J
authors: CJ
authors: Martín-Arguedas
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Romero-Laorden
authors: Oscar
authors: O
authors: Martínez-Graullera
authors: Manuel
authors: M
authors: Pérez-López
authors: Luis
authors: L
authors: Gómez-Ullate
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003199:Computer Systems; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D008904:Miniaturization; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014159:Transducers; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000295:instrumentation*