title: Plane-wave ultrasound beamforming using a nonuniform fast Fourier transform.
abstract: Beamforming of plane-wave ultrasound echo signals in the Fourier domain provides fast and accurate image reconstruction. Conventional implementations perform a k-space interpolation from the uniform sampled grid to a nonuniform acoustic dispersion grid. In this paper, we demonstrate that this step can be replaced by a nonuniform Fourier transform. We study the performance of the nonuniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT) in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and computational cost, and show that the NUFFT offers an advantage in the trade-off between speed and accuracy, compared with other frequency-domain beamforming strategies.
authors.affiliation: Erasmus Medical Center, Thorax Center, Biomedical Engineering, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. p.kruizinga@erasmusmc.nl
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kruizinga
authors.forename: Frits
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mastik
authors.forename: Nico
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: de Jong
authors.forename: Antonius F W
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: van der Steen
authors.forename: Gijs
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: van Soest
mesh_terms: D005583:Fourier Analysis; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*