title: Compound Doppler ultrasound signal simulation for pulsatile carotid arteries with a stenosis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The simulated Doppler blood flow signals are widely used to assess the performance of the clutter filters for removing wall components while reserving low-velocity signals scattered from physiological blood flow approaching the inner vessel-wall injured by a stenosed lesion.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  By simultaneously taking into account the natural attributes of the Doppler equipment, blood flow as well as vessel wall of pulsatile carotid arteries with a stenosis, a computer simulation method is presented to produce the compound Doppler ultrasound blood flow signals.
  
  
  METHODS
  The in-phase and quadrature (I/Q) axial as well as radial blood flow signals are simulated by superposing a series of cosine functions regulated by the spectrograms estimated from the axial and radial velocity profiles firstly obtained through the solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, respectively. Meanwhile, the I/Q Doppler signals echoed from pulsatile near (anterior) and far (posterior) walls are reproduced based on their radial movements during a cardiac cycle. Ultimately, those confirmed quadrature signals are summed to generate the compound Doppler signals including the contribution from both blood flow and stenosed vessel-wall.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The compound Doppler ultrasound signals echoed from both axial and radial blood flows as well as vessel walls with obstruction grades of 0% (normal arteries), 10% and 25% are simulated respectively. The real signals from the left carotid artery with an approximately 10% stenosis degree are also collected for further assessing the believability of simulated versions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The simulated and clinical tests demonstrate that the proposed computer simulation method can produce compound Doppler signals with confirmed qualitative and quantitative characteristics resembled with the clinical versions, which could be used as an theoretical data source for evaluating the performance of the signal separation between pulsatile blood flows and vessel walls with mild stenosed-lesions.
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, Information School, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan 650091, China. E-mails: 962245641@qq.com, yfengzhang@yahoo.com, 3002380@qq.com, 1162019872@qq.com, 617674101@qq.com, ghcai@ynu.edu.cn, jhzhang@ynu.edu.cn.
authors: Lian
authors: L
authors: Gao
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, Information School, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan 650091, China. E-mails: 962245641@qq.com, yfengzhang@yahoo.com, 3002380@qq.com, 1162019872@qq.com, 617674101@qq.com, ghcai@ynu.edu.cn, jhzhang@ynu.edu.cn.
authors: Yufeng
authors: Y
authors: Zhang
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, Information School, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan 650091, China. E-mails: 962245641@qq.com, yfengzhang@yahoo.com, 3002380@qq.com, 1162019872@qq.com, 617674101@qq.com, ghcai@ynu.edu.cn, jhzhang@ynu.edu.cn.
authors: Yi
authors: Y
authors: Zhou
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, Information School, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan 650091, China. E-mails: 962245641@qq.com, yfengzhang@yahoo.com, 3002380@qq.com, 1162019872@qq.com, 617674101@qq.com, ghcai@ynu.edu.cn, jhzhang@ynu.edu.cn.
authors: Xiao
authors: X
authors: Hu
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, Information School, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan 650091, China. E-mails: 962245641@qq.com, yfengzhang@yahoo.com, 3002380@qq.com, 1162019872@qq.com, 617674101@qq.com, ghcai@ynu.edu.cn, jhzhang@ynu.edu.cn.
authors: Li
authors: L
authors: Deng
authors: Cardiovascular Department, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical College, Kunming, Yunnan 650031, China. E-mail: zhangkexingkm@vip.sina.com.
authors: Kexin
authors: K
authors: Zhang
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, Information School, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan 650091, China. E-mails: 962245641@qq.com, yfengzhang@yahoo.com, 3002380@qq.com, 1162019872@qq.com, 617674101@qq.com, ghcai@ynu.edu.cn, jhzhang@ynu.edu.cn.
authors: Guanghui
authors: G
authors: Cai
authors: Department of Electronic Engineering, Information School, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan 650091, China. E-mails: 962245641@qq.com, yfengzhang@yahoo.com, 3002380@qq.com, 1162019872@qq.com, 617674101@qq.com, ghcai@ynu.edu.cn, jhzhang@ynu.edu.cn.
authors: Junhua
authors: J
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D002339:Carotid Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016893:Carotid Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D011673:Pulsatile Flow; D018608:Ultrasonography, Doppler / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Compound Doppler signal simulation; axial and radial velocity profiles; carotid artery with a stenosis; physiological pulsation